Hi all,

I had a few problems with my ws2300 rain guage and eventually replaced it
early this year. Since then I've been checking/comparing against local
reports - e.g. Phil L who seems to be closest. Recorded a total of 220mm in
July which seemed rather high. However last night recorded 90mm all between
6pm and midnight ! Unfortunately I was in London 'till past midnight and it
was dry there. Clear evidence of high rainfall when we got home - Jacobs
Well roads flooded, piles of granite chippings off the neighours shed, plus
*plenty* of water in flower pots. But 90mm ? Anyone else get anything like
that amount ?

Cheers

T
Burpham, Surrey

T wrote:
Hi all,

I had a few problems with my ws2300 rain guage and eventually
replaced it early this year. Since then I've been checking/comparing
against local reports - e.g. Phil L who seems to be closest. Recorded a
total of 220mm in July which seemed rather high. However
last night recorded 90mm all between 6pm and midnight ! Unfortunately I
was in London 'till past midnight and it was dry
there. Clear evidence of high rainfall when we got home - Jacobs
Well roads flooded, piles of granite chippings off the neighours
shed, plus *plenty* of water in flower pots. But 90mm ? Anyone else
get anything like that amount ?
Cheers

T
Burpham, Surrey

220mm seems excessive from the July Met Office Contoured Maps which show
rainfall totals between 100 and 150mm. 90mm also seems excessive for last
night.

Alan

On 8 Aug, 09:15, "T" wrote:
Hi all,

I had a few problems with my ws2300 rain guage and eventually replaced it
early this year. Since then I've been checking/comparing against local
reports - e.g. Phil L who seems to be closest. Recorded a total of 220mm in
July which seemed rather high. However last night recorded 90mm all between
6pm and midnight ! Unfortunately I was in London 'till past midnight and it
was dry there. Clear evidence of high rainfall when we got home - Jacobs
Well roads flooded, piles of granite chippings off the neighours shed, plus
*plenty* of water in flower pots. But 90mm ? Anyone else get anything like
that amount ?

Cheers

T
Burpham, Surrey

I have a ws1600 rain gauge, which is a small oblong plastic affair
about 7cms tall and perhaps 10cm long and I assume is of the tipping
bucket design. Mine only registers every 0.5mm of rain, but I have
noticed that in certain heavy downpours the base station increases by
1.0mm almost instantly.

I have not inspected the inside of the unit as it is screwed onto a
large piece of wood to keep it stable, but my current theory is that
the force of tipping in heavy rain causes the 'bucket' to bounce
enough to send it back to its original condition - thus registering
two tips instead of one.

On Wed, 08 Aug 2007 02:06:40 -0700, crazyhorse wrote:

... my current theory is that the force of tipping in heavy rain causes
the 'bucket' to bounce enough to send it back to its original condition
- thus registering two tips instead of one.

Does the unit also indicate rain rate? Such a double bounce would give a
rate off the top of the scale or at very silly numbers.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On 8 Aug, 10:35, "Dave Liquorice" wrote:
On Wed, 08 Aug 2007 02:06:40 -0700, crazyhorse wrote:
... my current theory is that the force of tipping in heavy rain causes
the 'bucket' to bounce enough to send it back to its original condition
- thus registering two tips instead of one.

Does the unit also indicate rain rate? Such a double bounce would give a
rate off the top of the scale or at very silly numbers.


No unfortunately not, mine is only the cheap version. If I am watching
during heavy rain (not difficult over the last few months) I notice
that it is only an intermittent effect and then only seems to happen
above about 6mm/hr instantaneous rate, i.e an increment on the readout
at less than 5 minutes.

My first thought was that there was something inside the gauge (small
twig, cowardly snail, etc) which was not allowing one side to fall to
its full extent, but if that had been the case I would expect the
effect to occur in less heavy rainfall.

On Wed, 08 Aug 2007 04:27:16 -0700, crazyhorse wrote:

Does the unit also indicate rain rate?

No unfortunately not, mine is only the cheap version.

Shame. A tipping bucket guage has to be dead level in both planes,
otherwise it will tip before it should on one bucket. This may or not be
compensated with the other bucket tipping later.

Might be worth getting a 10ml syringe and carefully measuring how much
water it takes to tip each bucketful and calculate the amount for 1mm (or
how much each tip is supposed to represent).

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Aug 8, 9:15 am, "T" wrote:
Hi all,

I had a few problems with my ws2300 rain guage and eventually replaced it
early this year. Since then I've been checking/comparing against local
reports - e.g. Phil L who seems to be closest. Recorded a total of 220mm in
July which seemed rather high. However last night recorded 90mm all between
6pm and midnight ! Unfortunately I was in London 'till past midnight and it
was dry there. Clear evidence of high rainfall when we got home - Jacobs
Well roads flooded, piles of granite chippings off the neighours shed, plus
*plenty* of water in flower pots. But 90mm ? Anyone else get anything like
that amount ?

Cheers

T
Burpham, Surrey

I would guess that is high by a factor of about three. Do not
be infatuated with gizmos especially for measuring totals. They're no
good. A funnel stuck in a milk bottle is more reliable. I have
checked this against my standard Snowdon pattern gauge over a period
of a few months and the agreement is surprisingly good.
Only 0.3 mm here and one clap of thunder.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, NE Surrey, 556 ft.

"crazyhorse" wrote in message
ps.com...

I have a ws1600 rain gauge, which is a small oblong plastic affair
about 7cms tall and perhaps 10cm long and I assume is of the tipping
bucket design. Mine only registers every 0.5mm of rain, but I have
noticed that in certain heavy downpours the base station increases by
1.0mm almost instantly.

I have not inspected the inside of the unit as it is screwed onto a
large piece of wood to keep it stable, but my current theory is that
the force of tipping in heavy rain causes the 'bucket' to bounce
enough to send it back to its original condition - thus registering
two tips instead of one.


That could be it. I've been reasonably impressed with correlations with
other readings, but heavy rain seems to record 1mm at a time rather than the
spec 0.5mm.

T

In uk.sci.weather on Wed, 8 Aug 2007, T wrote
:
Hi all,

I had a few problems with my ws2300 rain guage and eventually replaced it
early this year. Since then I've been checking/comparing against local
reports - e.g. Phil L who seems to be closest. Recorded a total of 220mm in
July which seemed rather high. However last night recorded 90mm all between
6pm and midnight ! Unfortunately I was in London 'till past midnight and it
was dry there. Clear evidence of high rainfall when we got home - Jacobs
Well roads flooded, piles of granite chippings off the neighours shed, plus
*plenty* of water in flower pots. But 90mm ? Anyone else get anything like
that amount ?

Living in Gloucestershire, I know what that amount of rain looks like
though!
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)

"T" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I had a few problems with my ws2300 rain guage and eventually replaced it
early this year. Since then I've been checking/comparing against local
reports - e.g. Phil L who seems to be closest. Recorded a total of 220mm
in July which seemed rather high. However last night recorded 90mm all
between 6pm and midnight ! Unfortunately I was in London 'till past
midnight and it was dry there. Clear evidence of high rainfall when we
got home - Jacobs Well roads flooded, piles of granite chippings off the
neighours shed, plus *plenty* of water in flower pots. But 90mm ? Anyone
else get anything like that amount ?

I would always recommend anyone with any sort of automated
rain-gauge to install a manual gauge as well. This will give you an
accepted standard against which to compare the accuracy and
performance of your particular electronic instrument.

Philip