Educational - Precipitation measurements

From WunderWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Back to: Weather Q & A

Precipitation is measured in inches (on our site). Although it seems strange to think about an "inch" of water, since this measure is for length, it is correct. A rain gauge is a fixed container with straight sides and a flat bottom. The gauge measures the height of the column of water as it fills up. The amount of rainfall is equivalent to the top of the water level when the time for mesaurement runs out.

If we assume that the same amount of rain falls into a small gauge as a large gauge because rain falls at (pretty much) the same rate in the same area, then the size of the gauge does not matter. We are measuring the height of the water column that falls into a cube of some size. The effects of evaporation and run-off do not affect precipitation measurement.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.wunderground.com/index.php/Educational_-_Precipitation_measurements"
Personal tools