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Old January 29th 08, 04:51 PM posted to uk.sci.weather
Harold Brooks Harold Brooks is offline
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First recorded activity by Weather-Banter: Jul 2003
Posts: 178
Default Rain gauge heights

In article , says...
It's probably been discussed before, but...

The general idea is that rain gauges should be as flush with the ground as
possible to ensure that the catch is affected as little as possible by the
wind. Just to test this I put three idenitical TBR (Youngs) gauges at
rim-heights of 40cm, 100cm and 160cm above the ground. From 12/11/07 to
29/01/08 they collected 210.4, 213.2 and 216.5 mm respectively. Um...


I'm not sure what the question here is. The variability in precip over
even very small distances could explain this. We had a student here a
few years ago that was involved in a project where they put out two
identical rain gauges attached to each other and found differences of a
couple of percent, IIRC, in what landed in each gauge.

You might try putting them out at the same height in the same locations
as you used this time and see what variability there is.

Harold

--
Harold Brooks
NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory