I’m having problems with NetStorm. I run the setup from the website and do the repair option and "Error 1316" pops up. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Try uninstalling the old version from the Control Panel and then install the current version. Otherwise, install the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility, available from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

Thanks, the uninstall and reinstall worked.

Can you confirm that interevent time in the NETSTORM IDF output is in hours?

Yes, interevent duration is hours. Here’s a description of this table from http://www.dynsystem.com/NetSTORM/netstormidfsample.htm/ :

The Year table lists annual statistics. The statistics shown are comparable with those in the previous tables with the addition of columns for Events, Non-Events, and Interevent. Events indicates the number of storms exceeding the specified threshold for the year. Non-events are periods of measureable precipitation falling below the threshold. Interevent is the average time (hours) between events. Means of the annual series are listed at the end of the table.

This value is very sensitive to definitions of minimum “storm” depth and distinct event definition (storm event separation time; termed ‘interevent time’ in the existing documentation). The program compiles ‘events’ and ‘non-events’ based on a minimum depth. For instance, if you specify a minimum depth of 0.15”, it discards any storm that fails to meet this criterion. Furthermore, it is very sensitive to how long you specify as an acceptable dry period within a single ‘event.’ For instance, if you specify a storm event separation time of 5 hours and it rains for 3 hours, is dry for 4 hours, and then rains for 6 hours more, the model will tabulate a single event lasting 13 hours. The dry period during the storm is then not considered in determining average interevent duration. (This discussion also demonstrates that I need to change the terminology to indicate the user specifies “storm event separation time” while the model computes “Interevent time ”)

Here’s the existing documentation describing specification of storm event separation time from http://www.dynsystem.com/NetSTORM/help/IDFAnalysis.html/

Interevent time has a major bearing on the listings of "continuous" storm events and plays a minor role in selection of interval events if sub-events are excluded. It is recommended that the interevent time be chosen to obtain a resulting coefficient of variation (standard deviation divided by mean) of 1. NetSTORM displays the coefficient of variation in its results. A trial and error approach should be used to identify the appropriate interevent time. As examples, it has been found to be 12 hours for Dallas, 8 hours in Indianapolis, and 5 hours in Boston. Dry periods longer than the minimum data gap to flag are excluded from the interevent time coefficient of variation calculation. This facilitates exclusion of seasonal dry periods from the computation of this parameter. Thus, with the minimum data gap to flag set to 30 days, an interevent time of 33 hours for Sacramento yields a coefficient of variation of 1.

I suggest that if you need to use the interevent time in an analysis you’re doing, you obtain NetSTORM and tinker with the interevent time and storm minimum total parameters. You may also want to tinker with the ‘minimum gap to flag’ parameter, although this generally has little effect in the eastern US where there is no dry season.

11/09 note - updating OWC also fixes problems we've encountered with the Plotter component of the program!!

I am installing NetSTORM at my computer at home and all the applications seem to be working properly except for STORM, which is the one I needed. When I go to Analyze > STORM, I get this message: Run-time error '339': Component "OWC11.DLL' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid.

OWC11 is Microsoft's Office Web Components. It has a spreadsheet control which several of the program dialogs use. Microsoft dropped it from Office 2007. NetSTORM depended on its presence on the host machine. Fortunately, it's a free download from Microsoft. You can download OWC11 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C815DFFA-D5F3-4B71-BF46-13721BD44682

You might also try http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=644008e0-77c9-4a02-ac9b-e30d0930c4be

You can check which version of OWC you're running in NetSTORM by going to the Analyze | Gradually Varied Flow and clicking the colorful Microsoft icon on the left. I've got 12.0.0.6211

We're in the process of porting the program to C#. We expect this move to resolve issues such as this that relate to Microsoft's discontinued OWC software.

A user wrote I am in the process of migrating old NetSTORM files (i.e. version 2002) to the new NetSTORM platform. In the old NetSTORM, after I performed a simulation, I could perform a report generation which gave summary output of the overflow volume and frequency. I can't find that function in NetSTORM 2008. Are the report functions available in the new NetSTORM?

I coded the old NetSTORM interface in FoxPro in the mid-1990s. In 2002, I re-coded the interface in VB6. I did not create new detailed reports for the NetSTORM component of the program (i.e. the multi-structure STORM module). You can still generate the monthly summary and the structure summary, but the program only displays them in Access tables. It's up to you to format a report. The structure summary is saved to the Access table _CSOSummary. The monthly summary is in _MonthlySummary. Follow the links for details on their contents.

There are various places in NetSTORM where the program crashes with or without ceremony. The programming is a lot simpler when one doesn't have to 'trap' lots of errors. If you encounter a persistent problem, please report it to me, and I'll see about fixing it.

Recently, a user found that the program crashed whenever he opened the STORM dialog, giving a 'type mismatch' error before crashing. In a case like this, the only recourse is to wipe out the program's settings and start fresh. In most cases, you should be able to go to Edit | Options from the main menu, and click the Clear Settings button. If this fails to work, it may then be necessary to manually clear the Windows registry. Invoke REGEDIT.EXE from the Windows folder or from a Run prompt. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareVB and VBA Program SettingsNetSTORM. Press the Delete key to remove all NetSTORM references. You'll need to re-register the program to use the IDF analysis again.