Paul,
I think quite a few observers over the years can make a fairly accurate
assessment of the amount of rain from various pointers in the vicinity. For
instance 1 or 2mm of rain does not usually wet the ground under trees and it
takes at least 5mm or so to drip through. Or how much rain it takes to wet
the soil or make the gutters flow? I would make a temporary gauge from old
bottles or tin cans when on holiday when I was a lad etc.
As a youngster I used to look at the local house guttering ( 1950s council
house guttering). If they remained a light colour then the rain was less
than 5mm but over 10mm it would soak them completely and they would change
colour.
There was an area at the back of my parent's house where a puddle would form
and I would know how much rain it would take to make it a certain size or
how much rain it took to wet a local wall completely by dripping down it. I
did have a rain gauge after the age of 12. Of course it does help enormously
if you have a detailed knowledge of the area.
One can predict fairly easily by observing and timing the intensity e.g.
moderate rain say 2mm to 4mm per hour for 3 hours say but overnight rain
when one is asleep and before the days of AWS stations etc then it would be
the above methods?
So your post made me think what ways ( the mind boggles) did UK SCi members
use or still use to estimate rain without looking in the gauge?
Ian Currie- Coulsdon
www.Frostedearth.com


Paul Hyett" wrote in message
...
In uk.sci.weather on Tue, 10 Oct 2006, Graham Easterling
wrote :

The 17:00 rainfall radar
http://www.met-office.gov.uk/weather...dar/index.html showed some
bright echos moving across Penzance, but so far (at 17:35) only around
1.5mm of rain has fallen.

There was some heavy rain at around that time in St Ives too, but of
course I had no way of measuring totals. No thunder though.
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)