Precipitation

Prepared by:
Asinas Jr., Carlito B.
Majait, Jemrey T.
Moriles, Joy B.
Soplito, Rannel D.
Precipitation
What is precipitation?

Precipitation is the process that occurs when

any and all forms of water particles fall from
the atmosphere and reach the earth. The
usual forms are rainfall, snowfall, hail, frost
and dew.
The natural stating point for the
hydrologic cycle and main input to the
hydrologic systems.
 Rain - Liquid precipitation that has a water droplet
diameter of 0.02 inch (0.5 mm) or larger. If the water
droplets freeze upon contact with a surface, the
phenomenon is called freezing rain.

Freezing rain
 Snow - Precipitation that consists of white or
translucent ice crystals. Snow must form in cloud
temperatures below freezing, though it may fall
through air at above freezing temperatures for a short
period of time before melting.
 Hail - A clear to opaque ball of hard ice, ranging in
diameter from 1/8 inch or so to 5 inches or larger.
 Sleet is a regionally variant term that refers to two
distinct forms of precipitation: Rain and snow mixed,
snow that partially melts as it falls.
transparent / translucent spheres of frozen water.
Formation of Precipitation
1. Condensation
Conversion of water vapor into liquid droplets.
Mixing of air masses having different temperatures.
Cooling of moist air to a temperature below the
saturation point for water vapor.

Growth of droplets.
Collision: cloud droplets collide with each
other.
Types of Precipitation
Convective Precipitation
Cyclonic Precipitation
Orographic Precipitation
Convective precipitation
caused by natural rising of warmer, lighter air in colder, denser
surroundings. Generally, this kind of precipitation occurs in tropics,
where on a hot day, the ground surface gets heated unequally,
causing the warmer air to lift up as the colder air comes to take its
place. The vertical air currents develop tremendous velocities.
Convective precipitation occurs in the form of showers of high
intensity and short duration.
Cyclonic precipitation
Cyclonic precipitation is caused by lifting of an air mass
due to the pressure difference. Cyclonic precipitation may
be either frontal or non-frontal cyclonic precipitation.

Cold front Warm front

Cyclonic precipitation may vary from light to moderate

showers and thunderstorms.
Orographic Precipitation
Caused by the orographic effect which occurs when moist air
flowing from the ocean encounters a mountain barrier and is
forced up over the mountains. The air continues to cool as it
rises, and the moisture condenses and precipitates as rain or
snow on the windward side of the mountain. When the
moisture-depleted winds flow down the other side of the
mountains, they warm and become drier. Little precipitation
reaches the leeward side of the mountains
Precipitation Measurement
Rainfall and other forms of precipitation
Tipping-bucket
Standard rain gage are measured in terms of depth. The most
common instruments used to measure
are:
- the standard rain gauge, which is
read directly, and
- the tipping bucket gauge and
weighing gauge, both of which
record the amount of rain.

In case of snowfall, equivalent depth of

water is used as the depth of
precipitation. Although the quantity of
water in a given volume of snow is not
constant, a general ratio of 10 units of
snow to 1 unit of water is often used
when exact information is not available.
Errors in measuring precipitation occur due to:
Water splashes out of rain gage.
Water is retained on wall of rain gage.
Evaporation of water in rain gage.
Snow obstructs top of gage.
Spatial variability of precipitation.
Height of gauge above the ground level.
Wind
Presentation of rainfall data
Mass
Mass
curve
curve
of rainfall
of rainfall
Hyetograph
The mass curve of rainfall is a plot of the accumulated
precipitation against time plotted in chronological order.
Very useful in extracting the information on the duration,
magnitude of a storm and intensities at various time intervals.
 A hyetograph is a plot of the intensities of rainfall against the time
interval. The hyetograph is derived from the mass curve and is
usually represented as a bar chart.
Mean Precipitation over an area
Raingauges represent only point sampling of the areal distribution
of a storm. In practice hydrological analysis requires a knowledge of
the rainfall over an area. To convert the point rainfall values at
various stations into an average value over a catchment the
following three methods are used:
Arithmetic mean
Thiessen polygon
Arithmetic Mean
When the rainfall measured at various stations in a catchment
show little variation, the average rainfall ( P ) for a basin can be
obtained as the arithmetic mean.

P1 P2 ..... Pn 1 N
P
N

N
P
i 1
i

Pn =precipitation of each station

P =average precipitation
 P1 A1 P2 A2 ..... Pn An
P
Thiessen polygon method A1 A2 ..... An
In this method the rainfall recorded at each station is
given a weightage on the basis of an area closest to the
station
The method of Thiessen polygons consists of attributing to each
station an influence zone in which it is considered that the rainfall
is equivalent to that of the station.
The influence zones are represented by convex polygons.
These polygons are obtained using the mediators of the segments
which link each station to the closest neighbouring stations

Pn =precipitation of each station

P =average precipitation

An =area of station bounded by bisectors