View Single Post
  #8   Report Post  
Old March 1st 18, 08:38 PM posted to uk.sci.weather
Norman Lynagh[_5_] Norman Lynagh[_5_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity by Weather-Banter: Jun 2016
Posts: 4,898
Default Why only a trace?

wrote:

On Thursday, March 1, 2018 at 10:21:42 AM UTC, Norman Lynagh wrote:
Graham Easterling wrote:

On Thursday, March 1, 2018 at 9:57:57 AM UTC,
wrote:
Why is seemingly the whole country reporting only a trace of
rainfall, or even none at all? I had 7.1mm in the 24 hours to
0900 this morning, with 13cm of snow lying.

Ian Bingham,
Inchmarlo, Aberdeenshire.
80m asl.

It's because humans are now largely redundant in the system.

That's progress!

Graham
Penzance


Even a manual rain gauge is of no use in the sort of conditions we
have here this morning. The funnel fills to the brim with falling
snow and drifting snow then anything further just blows off.
There's no 'level' snow from which to calculate a probable rainfall
equivalent. This morning I simply gave a sensible estimate based on
the amount of precipitation that I observed. It might be an
accurate estimate or it may not but it's the best I can do. The
last tip of the AWS bucket was at 1540z on 27th Feb. Some sunshine
that afternoon had caused a little melting of the snow in the
funnel.

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.
https://peakdistrictweather.org
Twitter: @TideswellWeathr

--------------------------------------------------------------------
I had 2.6 mm in my 5 inch funnel when I melted the snow yesterday.
Difficult to judge level snow but it was at least 10 cm in my garden
which could equate with about 8 mm. (1 foot snow=1 inch rain in old
money). Today has been hopeless with the gale force wind. Very
little in the funnel. So measuring precipitation in these conditions
is really a busted flush.

Len
Wembury, SW Devon


I agree. In these conditions, the best you can do is give a sensible
estimate.

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.
https://peakdistrictweather.org
Twitter: @TideswellWeathr