Daily rainfall totals near me6/27/2023 ![]() It is also possible that the 0.98 inches could be high, but I doubt it: I had briefly run a sprinkler hose at a low setting, but I had moved the gauge out of the way and I turned the water off immediately once the rain started. Runoff from this branch could have added to the total before I moved the gauge four feet to the west for the last two measurements. I noticed on September 13 that the tree had intruded again: the end of one branch was about 10-15 feet over the gauge, or slightly to the east. The metal gauge had been in the same place for several years, but I have moved it in the past year away from a growing tree. Why do I add “more or less”? Because there is uncertainty in the measurements. The final number: 16.37 inches on rain, more or less. I added a conservative 0.2 inches, since this gauge was under trees (marked as 2 on the graph). Fortunately, I have a second rain gauge in my backyard – a plastic gauge that registered about 0.25 inches. I went outside to check our gauge – only to see that it had been knocked over (probably by raccoons). I awoke on the morning of September 15 th and heard reports that up to 2 inches of rain fell overnight. (The lower shows the uncorrected values.)īut the rain hadn’t stopped. The result was 0.38 inches more than my rough estimate from the night before - a storm total of 14.52 inches up to this time. After bailing out five full tubes of rain, I poured the remaining water through the funnel into the tube to a depth of 13.5 inches, spilling a little bit during this process. Were my measurements accurate? On Friday morning, September 13, I took measurement using a more accurate method to compare with my estimates. I recorded measurements to within the nearest quarter inch (see the graph below). With these flaws, the lack of the ten-to-one exaggeration of depth, and some measurements being taken in the dark with a flashlight, my data were only approximate. That evening I found that the bottom of the gauge sagged in the middle, leading to an even deeper measurement than the downtilt side. The gauge tilts slightly, so I took a measurement on the uptilt side and the downtilt side and took an average. On the morning of September 12th, the gauge was so full and heavy, with over seven inches of rain, that I decided to stick a yardstick in the gauge to measure the rain amount, and save pouring into the inner tube for the end of the storm. The funnel and inner tube doesn’t quite fit, so, I leave the gauge open and then pour the rain into the inner tube using the funnel. I inherited it from a weather-observing neighbor who moved away. Thus, each inch in the tube is equivalent to 0.1 inches (a tenth of an inch) of rainfall. The inner tube’s diameter is just small enough to make the depth of rain ten times what it would be in a gauge without the tube and funnel. It has a funnel that deposits rain into an inner tube with a smaller diameter (like this one), but bigger. ![]() The gauge is the same type the National Weather Service uses. It’s also about the many possible sources of error when making rain measurements – from old rain gauges to growing trees and even, possibly, inquisitive raccoons.īy Monday morning (September 16), I had measured over 16 inches in our backyard rain gauge from the storm which began September 10. This is the story of my attempts to measure rain during the storm. Which brings us to the questions - How do you measure rain? And how accurate are the measurements? Even though I have done weather research for many years, during this storm I was reminded how hard it is to measure rain accurately. In early September of 2013, the Boulder, Colorado, area had huge amounts of rain. Peggy LeMone is an NCAR Senior Scientist who studies weather and cloud formation. We plan to make that information available here for our community too.Dr. The data will allow the SRFD to identify potential wildfire threats within the city limits and be better prepared. ![]() During the September 2022 heat event, the RAWS was placed in the upper elevations of Fountaingrove and firefighters were able to monitor the drastic differences in temperature, wind and humidity in the hills of Santa Rosa versus our valley floor. The sixth RAWS is a portable station and can be deployed around the city as needed. The information will provide the Fire Department and our Emergency Management team better situational awareness year-round, including fire season and winter storms. Five of stations have been strategically placed around the city on Fire and Water Department properties and will monitor local weather conditions. The Santa Rosa Fire Department (SRFD) received grant funding through FEMA and CAL OES to purchase six Remote Automatic Weather Stations (RAWS). Coming Soon to This Page: Fire Remote Automatic Weather Stations (RAWS) Information:
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