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Importing Rainfall Files

Rainfall data obtained from various sources can be imported into PAM 2000+ using this option. Three types of data file can be imported.

RainMan SIM Files.

The first supported format for rainfall information is the RainMan SIM file, which is produced using the separate program RainMan. (Note that Fairport do not make, sell nor support RainMan). The RainMan SIM export file is a simple text?based file format, which can be viewed using Windows Notepad.

An example of the first few lines from a RainMan SIM file might look like this:

065026
18891006 23.6G
18891018 19.1G
1890 113 13.2G
1890 117 4.3G

The first line, which is not used by PAM 2000+ in its processing, contains information about when the file was produced.

The second line, and all the lines which follow, contain rainfall data. The rainfall data is split into three parts.

The first eight characters on each line are the date on which the observation was made. This is in the format YYYYMMDD. That is, a four-digit year, two-digit month and two digit day. When the month is less that ten, a space is put before it rather than a zero. After the date a number of spaces separate the rainfall data.

Following the date is the actual rainfall data. This is a decimal number of millimetres (eg, 23.6). The last character is the third data field, and is not used by PAM 2000+ at this stage.

Generic CSV Files.

The second file format supported by PAM 2000+ is a generic CSV file. CSV files are text files (which can be viewed using Notepad or a similar program) that store data which can be read by programs such as Microsoft Excel.

With minor differences, the format of the generic CSV data file is the same as that of the RainMan SIM file. It stores only two fields, or columns of data - the date and the rainfall quantity. The first line of the SIM file is not present.

The date is in the same format as in the RainMan file, with the exception that instead of using a space character to fill where a month is less than ten, a zero is used. Following the date is a comma, then the rainfall amount (again, in millimetres). The third field from the SIM file is not used.

As an example, the few lines of the SIM file shown earlier would look like this when stored in a CSV file:

18891006,23.6
18991018,19.1
18900113,13.2
18900117,4.3

Fairport LST Files.

The final file format supported by PAM 2000+ is the Fairport LST format. Like the other supported file types, the Fairport LST is a text file format, which can be viewed in Windows Notepad.

The LST Format contains essentially the same data as of the other two formats, but it is presented in a different format. The first three lines of such a file are shown below.

dr DAYTOT 1988 01 01 0 0 0.00 1 1 1 0#
dr DAYTOT 1988 01 02 0 0 0.00 1 1 1 0#
dr DAYTOT 1988 01 03 0 0 0.00 1 1 1 0#

The columns acatually used by PAM 2000+ in importing rainfall data from this file are the third, fourth, fifth and eight, which store respectively, the four-digit year, two-digit month, two-digit day and number of millimetres of rainfall data recorded for the day. In some cases, the day number may be zero or 99, in which case the data is for rainfall recorded for the entire month.