Units and Type

Time series data has strings containing the data's units and type that is to be stored with it. The units are the common usage ones such as feet or cfs. There are no limitations on the spelling, capitalization or length of the units.
The type indicates how the data was measured or recorded, e.g., is it averaged over a period or is it a single measurement. The type field is limited to the following fieldsvalues:

• "INST-VAL"(A value for a specific time)
• "INST-CUM"(A cumulative measurement, such as a precipitation mass curve)
• "PER-AVER"(An average over the previous time and this time)
• "PER-CUM"(Accumulation over the period, such as incremental precipitation)

The type determines how the data is plotted (e.g., stair step or curve), and how math operations are done on it. You will get very different answers from the math functions for different data types. The data type is a common source of error when math is preformed on data with programs outside of the DSS realm (e.g., Excel).