When measuring daily precipitation, a rain gauge contains an outer and inner cylinder. Rain collects in the outer cylinder but is difficult to measure, so it drains into the narrower inner cylinder for a more precise reading to the hundredth of an inch. The inner cylinder has markings up to 1 inch, with an overflow notch above, and the meniscus curve must be accounted for in readings. Accurate recording of all measurements, including zeros, is important for tracking weather patterns.
When measuring daily precipitation, a rain gauge contains an outer and inner cylinder. Rain collects in the outer cylinder but is difficult to measure, so it drains into the narrower inner cylinder for a more precise reading to the hundredth of an inch. The inner cylinder has markings up to 1 inch, with an overflow notch above, and the meniscus curve must be accounted for in readings. Accurate recording of all measurements, including zeros, is important for tracking weather patterns.
When measuring daily precipitation, a rain gauge contains an outer and inner cylinder. Rain collects in the outer cylinder but is difficult to measure, so it drains into the narrower inner cylinder for a more precise reading to the hundredth of an inch. The inner cylinder has markings up to 1 inch, with an overflow notch above, and the meniscus curve must be accounted for in readings. Accurate recording of all measurements, including zeros, is important for tracking weather patterns.
When measuring daily precipitation, a rain gauge contains an outer and inner cylinder. Rain collects in the outer cylinder but is difficult to measure, so it drains into the narrower inner cylinder for a more precise reading to the hundredth of an inch. The inner cylinder has markings up to 1 inch, with an overflow notch above, and the meniscus curve must be accounted for in readings. Accurate recording of all measurements, including zeros, is important for tracking weather patterns.
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When we measure daily precipitation we measure to the nearest hundredth of an inch you may have
noticed that your rain gage has both an outer and inner cylinder when water falls into the outer cylinder it would be extremely difficult to measure the depth with accuracy the inner tube acts as a magnifier by squeezing the water into this smaller diameter inner tube it stretches the measurement out in order to see the depth to the nearest hundredth of an inch one inch in the outer cylinder will fill up your inner tube all the way to the top where it says 1.00 inch looking closely at your inner tube you will notice a small notch at the top this is for overflow or when it rains more than one inch the water level may be over the one-inch mark where there are no marks to measure you may have to give the cylinder a little shake to get the water line down to an inch or below where you will be able to measure accurately when you receive more than one inch of rain you will need to pour your first inch out and then use the funnel to pour the additional amount into your inner tube writing it down each time until you have measured the entire amount you are training animation called how to measure extreme rain fall to learn more to ensure an accurate measurement please do not round also make sure to put your decimal point in the correct spot as it will make a huge difference the most common measurement you will take will be zero point zero but don't be fooled a measurement of zero is just as important as any other measurement zeros help us keep track of droughts and forecast water supplies and sometimes the radar and satellites can fool meteorologists into thinking that rain is falling. When you have enough water in your inner cylinder to take a measurement you may find that it looks like it has a small curve or a thickness to it this is called the meniscus always measure from the bottom of the meniscus to ensure an accurate measurement once you've got a measurement record it in the report.
Precipitation is all the forms of water that reaches earth from atmosphere like rain, snow, frost, hail and dew. Rain and snow contribute t to the maximum part of water from precipitation. Rain can be defined by its water drop size and its velocity. The atmosphere must have moisture to precipitation to occur also by enough nuclei to aid condensation, suitable weather condition for condensation of water vapour and products of condensation must reach earth.
Weather systems for precipitation
Front: Interface between two distinct air masses, ascending warm air cools adiabatically and forms clouds.
Cyclone: They are large low-pressure region with circular wind motion. Is commonly know as Cyclone in India, Hurricane in USA, and typhoon in South East Asia. Area extent of about 100.200 km in diameter. Wind are anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere.
Anticyclones: Regions of high pressure, weather is usually calm in center. Clockwise wind in northern hemisphere, winds of moderate speed, clouds and precipitation prevails at the outer edges.
Convective precipitation: Packet of air rises due to localized heating. Air from cooler surrounding flows to take up its place setting up convective cell. Warm air rises cool down and form precipitation. Area extent is small about 10 km.
Orographic precipitation: Moist air masses lifted to higher altitudes due to presence of mountain barrier. Undergo cooling, condensation, and precipitation.
Measurement of precipitation Expressed in terms of the depth to which rainfall water would stand on an area if all the rain is collected on it. It is collected and measured in a rain gauge, Other terms are pluviometer, ombrometer and hyetometer. It consists of a cylindrical-vessel assembly kept in the open to collect rain. Classified into non-recording gauges and recording gauges.
Non recording Rain Gauge
Symons gauge is commonly used in India. It consists of a circular collecting area of 12.7 cm diameter and height 30.5 cm. The rainfall is measured everyday at 8:30 am and is records as the rainfall of that day. Can also measure snowfall.
Recording Rain Gauges
Recording gauges produces a continuous plot of rainfall against time. Provides data of intensity and duration of rainfall for hydrological analysis.
Tipping-Bucket Type: A 30.5 cm size rain gauge. Buckets are balanced such that when 0.25 mm of rainfall collects in one bucket, it tips and bring the other one in position.
Weighing-Bucket Type: Plot of accumulated rainfall against the elapsed time.
Natural-syphon type: Also called as float rain gauge. Adopted as standard rain gauge in India. Give plot of mass curve of rainfall.
Telemetering rain gauges: Gather rainfall data from mountainous regions and inaccessible places.
There are two types of precipitation, extreme and mean precipitation.
Rainfall hyetograph: chart or graph shows rainfall distribution as a function of time.
Volume duration frequency graph: The volume is the amount of precipitation over a storm duration. Reported as a depth, which is uniform over the watershed. Duration is the length of time over which the storm event occurs. Frequency is the length of time between storms of the same volume and duration.
Exceedance probability: probability that an event having a specific volume and duration will be exceeded in one period.
Intensity duration frequency: Intensity is the rate of rainfall recorded.
