Precipitation

By

B. Majumdar
Department of Power Engineering
Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Precipitation
It denotes all forms of water that reads to earth surface from atmosphere. This is may
be in the form of rain, freezing rain, drizzle, snow, ice pellets and hail. It is the major
component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water
on the earth.
Formation of clouds and subsequent precipitation it is necessary that the moist air
masses cool to form condensation. This is normally accomplished by adiabatic cooling
of moist air through a process of being lifted to higher altitudes. The air mass should
have supersaturated. The lifting of air mass may take place due to – thermal
convection, cyclones, orographic influence due to rugged terrains or mountains, frontal
meeting between cold and warm masses.
For precipitation to form –
• the atmosphere must have moisture
• there must be sufficient nuclei present to aid condensation
• weather conditions must be good for condensation of water vapor to take places
• the products of condensation must reach the earth
Characteristics of precipitation in India
• South-West monsoon (June – September)
• Transition – I, post monsoon (October – November)
• Winter season (December – February)
• Transition – II, Summer (March – May)
Annual rainfall
Average annual rainfall in India is estimated as 119 cm.
It is well known that there is considerable variation of annual rainfall in time at a
place. The coefficient of variation

s tan dard deviation

Cv = ×100 %
mean
Cv varies between 15-70 with average value of 30
Rainfall map of india
Measurement of rainfall

(3) Automatic radio-reporting rain gauges

Non-recording type rain gauges

Symon’s Gauge
The rain gauge is kept open. The rain falling into
the funnel is collected in the receiver. During
heavy rains, the rainfall is measured 2-4 times in a
day. The total rainfall of the day is obtained by
adding all the individual measurements of day.
Daily observation are taken twice 8.30 am and
5.30 pm. For snow fall 1/10th of the depth of snow
is added to the depth of rainfall as a thumb rule to
obtain total precipitation.
Recording gauges
(i) Tipping bucket rain gauges

The buckets tip when buckets

receive a rainfall of 0.25mm and
other bucket takes its place and
repeats. The movement of buckets
actautes an electric circuit which
causes a pen to move on a clock
driven drum with a graph sheet –
recording intensity of rain.
Advantages
Durable, simple to operate and
convenient

Disadvantages
• Does not give accurate result in the case of intense rainfall, as some rains falls in between
the tipping of the buckets which can not be measured.
• The records consists of a series of steps and not a conventional smooth mass curve required
for precipitation analysis
• The gauge is not suitable for measuring snow
(ii) Weighing type rain gauge
(iii) Float type rain gauge (Natural syphon type)
(iv) Automatic radio reporting rain gauge

Antenna

Sensors Rainfall register

Transmitter
& modulation

Power Supply
Coding &
programming
unit
Antenna
Programming clock

Receiver
Adequacy of rain gauge stations
If N = optimal number of stations
ε = allowable degree of error in estimation of the mean rainfall
Cv = coefficient of variation of rainfall values at the existing ‘m’ stations (in %)
m = number of existing stations
Pi = precipitation magnitude in the ith station
then
1⎡n ⎤
P = ⎢∑ Pi ⎥, P = mean precipitation
m⎣ 1 ⎦
2
⎛ Cv ⎞
N=⎜ ⎟
⎝ ε ⎠
100 × σ m −1 Normally ε =10% (taken)
Cv =
P ε is small if rain gauge stations are
σ m −1 = s tan dard deviation more
⎡m
(
⎢ ∑ Pi − P )2 ⎤⎥
= ⎢ 1 ⎥
⎢ m −1 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ ⎦
Problem
A catchment has 6 rain gauge stations. Ina year the annual rain fall

Station A B C D E F
Rain fall 82.6 102.9 180.3 110.3 98.8 136.7
(cm)
For a 10% error in the estimation of the mean rainfall, calculate the optimum number
of stations in the catchment
Solution

m = 6 P = 118.6
σ m −1 = 35.04
ε = 10 C v = 29.54
N = 8.7 ≈ 0 stations
Interpretation of rain gauge data
Different methods are used for determination the mean precipitation over an area if the average
values for the different rain-gauge stations in the area are known
Following methods are generally used
• Arithmetic mean method
(ii) Theissen Polygon method
• Position of rain gauges stations are marked on the plan of catchment area
• adjacent stations are joined by straight lines, I.e. entire zone is divided into a series of
triangles
• Perpendicular bisectors are drawn on each line of triangles, forms polygons around each
stations
• find area of each polygon by suitable method (planimeter)
• calculate average rainfall as below
Advantage
• Equal weightage factor is given to each points
• Better than other metods if number of rain gauges is similar w.r.t. the area of
the basin
Disadvantages
Suitable upto 5000 sq. km for plain basin
Isohyetal method

Isohyetal line means contours of equal rainfall

In this method it is assumed that precipitation in the area between two isohyetal lines
is equal to the mean of precipitation at the isohyetal lines.
However, this method is better for area more than 5000 sq.km
 Graphical presentation of rainfall
• Hyetographs (most popular and suitable for individual storm)

It is rainfall intensity vs. time

curve in the form of bar chart
diagram

• Mass curves (suitable for individual storm) Isohyet 22.5 cm (400 sq. km)

Cumulative Isohyet 12.5 cm (5000 sq. km)

Weighed
Rainfall (cm)

Duration in hour
• Moving average curve (suitable for yearly variation of rainfall)

Yearly average rainfall is plotted in bar-graph. It does not indicate clearly the
trends/cyclic patterns in the rainfall due to abrupt variations in individual years. In
order to suppress these and in order to bring the general trends of the rainfall, the
average of 3- or 5- consecutive years are found out progressly and plotted

For a 3-year moving mean P1 + P 2 + P 3

P1′ =
3
P + P3 + P 4
P 2′ = 2
3
P + P 4 + P5
P 3′ = 3 , etc .
3
P1′ , P 2′ , P 3′ are the moving average