PLEASE NOTE: The information provided below is solely associated to the Met Office Land Surface data (1900-2000) dataset which has been superseded by the Met Office MIDAS dataset (1853-present) at the BADC.
Cumulative measurements are ones which need a measurement period to make sense e.g Maximum temperature, rainfall and sunshine amount. For example DAY=3, DAY_CNT=1, END_HOUR=0200 and AMT=25 in a daily rain observation file would indicate 2.5mm of rainfall between 0200 on day 2 and 0200 on day 3. Similarly DAY=6, COUNT=12, END_HOUR=0900 and AMT=31 in a hourly rain observation file would indicate 3.1 mm of rainfall between 2100 on day 5 and 0900 on day 6.
Note: Please note that the throwback is not used in this dataset. Throwback was used in the older Met Office surface station datasets (climate and synoptic). The term "throwback" is given to the practice of moving some daily measurements of cumulative observations to the most appropriate day, i.e. maximum temperatures measured at 0900 on the 7th would have been credited to the 6th.