Click Here to Download the Program

This utility tells you how many days it's been since it rained in your area.  You can use it to tell whether this is a good day to try for Ol' Boggy.  You can also use it to alert you to water the lawn, and other non-caching purposes.

Go Here and click on the little green dot nearest you.  On the next page, select Preliminary Monthly Climate Data then select the location nearest you and Click GO.   The next page contains the rainfall data for the weather station nearest you.  Click Here to see an example of what the correct screen looks like.  NOTE: If you don't see a screen that looks like this the Rainfall program will not work in your local area.

Copy the URL/link at the top of the rainfall data  page.   The URL will look something like this:

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/getclimate.php?wfo=hgx

To copy the URL/link, click in the Address bar at the top of the browser screen.  This should highlight/mark the entire URL.  Go to Edit > Copy to copy the link or press Ctrl & C at the same time.

After you have downloaded the program, it will run once.  Don't run it again until you have configured it.  Go to this folder: 

If using XP -- C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\Thots Utilities\Rainfall 
If using Vista, Win7 or Win8 -- C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Roaming\Thots Utilities\Rainfall

Open the file named rainfall.cfg in Notepad or Wordpad and replace the similar URL there with the one you copied from the NOAA data page.  You must be careful to replace all of the example URL and only the URL.  If you mess it up, just delete the rainfall.cfg file, and run the program once to make a new one.

These Are the Entries in the rainfall.cfg File
You change them in Notepad to set your preferences

noaaURL=http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/getclimate.php?wfo=hgx
This is the URL you got and pasted in from the instructions above

TimeToRun=9:05 AM
In my area, yesterday's data is not posted  until about 9am.  You can use the TimeToRun parameter to set a time of day you want the program to check the rainfall data .  If you set a time here it takes precedence over DelayBeforeChecking.  That is, any value in DelayBeforeChecking is ignored if there is a value greater than 0 in TimeToRun.  If you intend to use a DelayBeforeChecking  enter no TimeToRun, that is, use TimeToRun=0

DelayBeforeChecking=60
This is the number of seconds after the program starts that it will check  If you want to delay the rainfall check for an hour enter 3600.  If you don't want a delay, enter 0.

DaysWithoutRain=0
If you only want to be notified when there have been say five days without rain enter 5 here.  If you want to be told every day how many days there have been without rain enter 0 here.

OnlyOnceDaily=yes
Determines if program will only run once daily.  If set to yes the program will only run once daily.  If set to no it can be run over and over each day
 

LastRunOn=01-01-2000
This is not a number the user should change. The program uses it to keep track of whether a rain check has been made today so it won't check twice if OnlyOnceDaily is set to yes.

After changing the URL I suggest you change all of the user parameter values to 0 (zero) and test to see if it's working.  Then change them to your preferences.

Put a Shortcut to the Program in Your Windows Startup Folder

The program is designed to run at computer startup.  It should put a shortcut in your windows Startup folder automatically when you install it, but if it doesn't or you removed it you will have to put one there yourself.