Time series and stl in R: Error only univariate series are allowed

Question

I am doing analysis on hourly precipitation on a file that is disorganized. However, I managed to clean it up and store it in a dataframe (called CA1) which takes the form a

Answer 1

That error is a result of the shape of your data. Try > dim(rainCA1); I suspect it to give something like > [1] 135264 1. Replace rainCA1 <- ts(dat1 ... by rainCA1 <- ts(dat1[[1]] ..., and it should work.

Whether it does so correctly, I wonder... It seems to me your first order of business is to get your data of a consistent format. Make sure ts() gets the right input. Check out the precise specification of ts.

ts() does not interpret date-time formats. ts() requires consecutive data points with a fixed interval. It uses a major counter and a minor counter (of which frequency fit into one major counter). For instance, if your data is hourly and you expect seasonality on the daily level, frequency equals 24. start and end, therefore, are primarily cosmetic: start merely indicates t(0) for the major counter, whereas end signifies t(end).