How can evapotranspiration be a positive number when it rains over 2" in a day? Is this number being calculated correctly?
The ET calculation doesn’t include the precip. In basic terms it’s the amount of water returned to the atmosphere by plants. So if your precip is more than your ET the plants will be happy, if your ET is more than the precip then you need to water.
EvapoTranspiration (ET) is a measurement of the amount of water vapor returned to the air in a given area. It combines the amount of water vapor returned through evaporation (from wet vegetation surfaces and the stoma of leaves) with the amount of water vapor returned through transpiration (exhalings of moisture through plant skin) to arrive at a total. Effectively, ETo is the opposite of rainfall, and is expressed in the same units of measure (Inches or millimeters)
DailyET is not connected to the ammount of daily rain fall.
but, rainfall will give rise to higher humidity, and so less drying/evaporation, and so a lower ET value 