On 22/04/2018 08:16, Graham P Davis wrote:
On 21/04/18 23:23, N_Cook wrote:
So about 28mm in 55 minutes with a peak rate of 200mm/hr

Reminded of some crap we were taught on the assistants' course in 1962,
one of several piles dumped on us. We were told never to report a
violent shower as we never get that in this country, it only occurs in
the tropics. I thought it was nonsense at the time and have been proven
right on many occasions.

For the record, a violent shower is classified in my "notes for
scientific assistants" as having an intensity of "greater than about
50mm (2 inches) per hour". ["Greater than about"? what?]

Heaviest rain I witnessed brought visibility down to 200m, which is not
often seen in snow let alone rain. Don't know the rainfall rate (I was
sitting in my stalled car outside the tower waiting for it to ease off)
but the observer said the tipping-bucket-rain-gauge counter "sounded
like a machine gun". That was on a cold front.

I've mentioned this before, but we had a Jardi rate of rainfall recorder
at Kew Observatory (6ft diameter collector). This recorded up to 200mm
and hour. We also had other weird and wonderful rain rate and rain
amount recorders as well. We had a list of occasions where the rate was
measured (not estimated) at over 100mm per hour. But when the DWR
(remember that?) was published we only had pR printed. I issued a
correction only to be told what you were. It was very gratifying to
disabuse them of their incorrect notion. The real reason was they
couldn't print the 2 subscript.
This, of course, was only one station....