I now have six years of data to compare against a generic, but official, "Los Angeles" rainfall and I'm happy to report that my measurements correlate well with the official Los Angeles measurements. See below how there's a straight line relationship between my measurements and the official ones? I take that as a good sign. I think that the offset in the official measurement is due to their better sensitivity to heavy fog / light rain. For instance, yesterday it rained enough to wet the concrete at my house, but not enough to measure. I will bet they have more sensitive measurements at the official Los Angeles weather station.
Just how useful my rainfall figures are is debatable. Certainly, I put them to good use in my rain barrel series, a stunningly insightful bit of analysis that made blindingly obvious the merely "quite clear" . For the conspiracy theorists among us, I've also independently correlated official government rainfall reports, so at least we know they're less likely to be lying about the rain. Now about that moon landing.... However, for me the greatest usefulness is the satisfaction that I get as a citizen scientist. I suppose I ought to aspire to sounding rockets or weather balloons or at least a higher degree of automation. Maybe later.
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