Hi all,
I’m not sure my rain guage is reporting accurately. Basically, it has been raining incesantly all day, with moderate to heavy bursts, and yet my guage is reporting only a current reading of 3mm. What is the best way to check that is measuring correctly ??
A good ol’ fashion “manual” rain gauge is a good device to use to see if yours is in the ballpark.
A good ol' fashion "manual" rain gauge is a good device to use to see if yours is in the ballpark.
Yes indeed. But I would need to go out and purchase something that I am not going to really use again, any other manual method, ie just emptying an an amount of water and seeing what it registers ??
Just to add, it has only just ticked up to 4mm for today and it has been raining for the last 4hrs !!!
I will re-position it tomorrow and see if it just that it is not in a good location to capture as much rain as it should.
location may be a factor especially if high obstacles are around - rain doesn’t always fall vertically.
Actually regarding the WMR928N - 1mm resolution for rainfall is quite poor. I also noticed that it has to be raining quite substantially for an hour or two before enough water starts tipping the bucket.
Today for example it has been a mixture of light and heavy showers - plenty of rainfall yet only 2mm registered from my guage - I can understand how it would seem there should be a lot more.
Only when there is sustained heavy rain makes the guage tip frequently.
To be honest I don’t know myself if my guage is accurate or not - but it works which is the main thing. Over 50mm (2 inches) of rain for April so far.
Yes indeed. But I would need to go out and purchase something that I am not going to really use again, any other manual method, ie just emptying an an amount of water and seeing what it registers ??If you have some way of measuring a volume of water, like a small kitchen measuring jug, just get out your ruler and calculator.
a) Determine the area over which the gauge is collecting rain in sq cm (in other words the area of the top of the funnel).
b) Decide how much rain you want to test, let’s say 5 cm.
c) Multiply the area by “b” to get the volume of water needed in ml.
d) Measure that amount of water, then pour it VERY slowly through the gauge.
This tests the gauge itself, but not the very important location issue that bristolwx raises. For that you can put a small volume measuring jug out in the same location in the next storm and collect the water. Divide the ml collected by the area of the top of the jug to get the cm of rain.
Yes indeed. But I would need to go out and purchase something that I am not going to really use again, any other manual method, ie just emptying an an amount of water and seeing what it registers ??If you have some way of measuring a volume of water, like a small kitchen measuring jug, just get out your ruler and calculator.a) Determine the area over which the gauge is collecting rain in sq cm (in other words the area of the top of the funnel).
b) Decide how much rain you want to test, let’s say 5 cm.
c) Multiply the area by “b” to get the volume of water needed in ml.
d) Measure that amount of water, then pour it VERY slowly through the gauge.
This tests the gauge itself, but not the very important location issue that bristolwx raises. For that you can put a small volume measuring jug out in the same location in the next storm and collect the water. Divide the ml collected by the area of the top of the jug to get the cm of rain.
Sounds good to me !!! Thanks
I found on the 2300 rain guage that if you put screws through the holes in the base, and tightened them to any degree, it deformed the plastic and caused the bucket to bind on the upright support, and would not tip, or did only sometimes, giving as low reading.