MEASUREMENT OF PRECIPITATION

For hydrological analysis it is important to know how much precipitation has fallen and when this
occurred. Without precipitation, there is no runoff, evaporation, or groundwater recharge.

There are instruments and techniques that have been developed for gathering information on
precipitation. The most important are the instruments for measuring the amount and intensity of
precipitation. There are some instruments that includes devices for measuring raindrop-size distribution
and for determining the time of beginning and ending of precipitation. All form of precipitation are
measured on the basis of the vertical depth of water that would accumulate on a level surface if the
precipitation remained where it fell. Rainfall is measured by millimeters or inches depth, rather than by
volume such as liters or cubic meters.

PRECIPITATION GAGES
Any open receptacle with vertical sides is a convenient rain gage, but because of varying wind and splash
effects the measurements would not be comparable unless the receptacles were of the same size and
shape and similarly expo ed. The standard gage of the U.S. Weather Bureau has a collector (receiver) of
8-in. diameter. Rain passes from the collector into a cylindrical measuring tube inside the overflow can.
The measuring tub has a cross -sectional area one-tenth that of the collector so that O.I-in. rainfall will
fill the Overflow can tube to a depth of 1 in. With a measuring stick marked in tenths of an inch, rainfall
can be measured to the nearest 0.01 in. The collector and tube are removed when snow is expected.
The snow caught in the outer container, or overflow can, is melted, poured into the measuring tube, and
measured.

There are three types of recording gages in common use, these are the tipping-bucket gage, the
weighing gage, and the float gage. In tipping-bucket gage, the water caught in the collector is funneled
into a two-compartment bucket; designed quantity of rain will fill one compartment and overbalance
the bucket so it tips, emptying into a reservoir and moving the second compartment into place beneath
the funnel. While the bucket is tipped, it actuates an electrical circuit. This type of gage is not suitable
for measuring snow without heating the collector.

The weighing-type gage weighs the rain or snow which falls into a bucket set on the platform of a spring
or lever balance. The increasing weight of the bucket and its contents is recorded on a chart that shows
the accumulation of precipitation.

In floating recording gages, the rise of the float with increasing catch of rainfall is recorded. Some gages
are emptied manually, while some are emptied automatically by self-starting siphons. Most float gages
is placed in the receiver, but in some the receiver rests in a bath of oil or mercury and the float
measures the rise of the oil or mercury displaced by the increasing weight of the receiver as the rainfall
catch accumulates. When the rainfall freezes, the float may be damaged.

Most gages record by a pen trace on chart. The punched tape recorder punches the amount of
precipitation accumulated in the collector on a tape in digital code, which later can be run through a
translator for adopting to computer evaluation of the record. Gages recording on magnetic tape or solid-
state memory device are now coming into use. Their advantage is that it can be read directly into the
computer.
When the storage gage is located in heavy-snowfall area, the receiver should be in the form of frustrum
of a cone to prevent wet snow from clinging to the inside walls. Storage gages are charge with calcium
chloride solution (antifreeze) to liquefy the snow and prevent damage to the gage. Interim
measurements of the gage catch are made by stick or tape, while the initial charge and final
measurement of the seasonal catch are made by weighing the contents.

Precipitation measurements are subject to various errors, most being individually small but with a
general tendency to yield measurements that are too low. Except for mistakes in reading the scale of the
gage, observational errors are usually small but cumulative. Errors in scale reading, although large, are
usually random and compensating. Instrumental errors may be quite large and are cumulative. . Another
loss results from raindrop splash from the collector.

Of all the errors the most serious is the deficiency of measurements due to wind. The vertical
acceleration of air forced upward over a gage imparts an upward acceleration to precipitation about to
enter and results in deficient catch. The deficiency is greater for small raindrops than for large and is
thus greater for light than for heavy rain. The deficiency is greater for snow than for rain and larger for
dry than for wet snow.

When the rain is felling vertically, a gage inclined 10o from the vertical will catch 1.5 percent less than it
should. If a gage on level ground is inclined slightly toward the wind, it will catch more precipitation.
Practically speaking, there is no gage has been designed which will give reliable measurements in steep
slopes experiencing high wind and such sites should be avoided.

PRECIPITATION-GAGE NETWORK
The spatial variability of precipitation and intended uses of data should determine network density. A
relative sparse network of stations would suffice for studies of large general storms or for determining
annual averages over large areas of level terrain. A very dense network is required to determine the
rainfall patterns in thunderstorms. The probability that a storm center will be recorded by a gage varies
with network density. A network should be planned to yield a representative picture of the areal
distribution of precipitation. On the other hand, the cost of installing and maintaining a network and
accessibility of the gage site to an observer are always important considerations.

The error of rainfall averages computed from networks of various densities has been investigated. In
general, sampling errors, in terms of depth, tend to increase with increasing areal mean precipitation
and to decrease with increasing network density, duration of precipitation, and size of area. Average
errors also tend to be greater for summer than for winter precipitation because of the generally greater
spatial variability of summer rainfall.

If only one gage is used as an index to catchment precipitation and if storm patterns are randomly
distributed over the catchment, the observed precipitation will have a greater variance than the true
average precipitation. Over a sufficient time period of time the gage should indicate average
precipitation close to the catchment mean, and thus the mean estimated stream flow should be
reasonably accurate.

While not enough work has been done to yield general results, the problem of minimum precipitation-
network density for various hydrologic purposes has been investigated. Calibration and dispersion errors
to be expected when simulation methods are used to estimate annual stream flow. The calibration error
is the ratio of the standard error of estimate to the standard deviation of the observed flows. The
dispersion error is expressed as a percentage of the coefficient of variation of the historic record.

RADAR MEASUREMENT OF PRECIPITATION

A radar transmits a pulse of electromagnetic energy as abeam in a direction determined by a movable
antenna. The beam width and shape are determined by the antenna size and configuration. The
radiated waves, which travels at the speed of light, is partially reflected by cloud or precipitation
particles and return to the radar, where it is received by the same antenna.

Energy returned to the radar is called the target signal, the amount is termed returned power, and its
display on the radarscope is called an echo. The echo intensity (or the brightness of an echo) is an
indication of the magnitude of returned power, which in turn is a measure of the radar reflectivity of the
hydrometeors.

The time interval between emission of the pulse and appearance of the echo on the radarscope is a
measure of a distance, or range, of the target from the radar. Loss of radar energy due to passage
through precipitation is called attenuation. Part of the loss results from scattering and part from
absorption. The larger the rain and snow diameter-to-wavelength ratios, the greater the attenuation.
For a given particle diameter, the shorter the wavelength, the greater the attenuation. Thus, at short
wavelengths the total energy may be greatly diminished by a relative short penetration into a storm.
These short wavelengths, however, are useful for delineating very light rainfall within short distances,
drizzle, and cloud forms.

The average returned power is a measure of the radar reflectivity of all particles at range intercepting
the radiated beam. Because of the factors that affect returned power, the accuracy of radar
measurements of precipitation varies within duration, are, storm type, and range. Since measurements
by ordinary gage networks may be appreciably in error as a result of inadequate sampling, and since
radar can detect and estimate precipitation between gages in a network of ordinary density, conjunctive
use of radar and gage network should yield more accurate areal averages than can be obtained from
either one alone.

SATELLITE ESTIMATES OF PRECIPITATION

Studies of water balance on a global scale require information on precipitation where gage or radar
networks are inadequate or nonexistent, as over oceans. Satellites cannot measure precipitation
directly, and their use for estimating it is based on relating brightness of clod photographs to rainfall
intensities. The degree of brightness is an indication of the temperature, or height, of the cloud tops-the
brighter the image the higher the cloud top. The tallest and densest clouds produce the heaviest
intensities. An indirect procedure is to determine the percentage of an area covered by various cloud
types and to multiply by empirically established coefficients to obtain the rainfall contribution from each
cloud type.

A major problem in estimating precipitation by satellites is that the photographs often do not reveal
precipitation–producing clouds because of overlying cloud layers. Future developments in
instrumentation and techniques may lead eventually to reasonably accurate satellite estimates of
precipitation.