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September Discusssion--winter bound or bust


moneypitmike

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I have my Davis rain gauge and 4" CoCoRaHs gauge on the same 4x4 post in the backyard. The Davis does under report a bit compared to the 4" gauge. Maybe 3 or 4%? 

 

The other issue is that having been to Kevin's house with those giant trees around... I bet ANY gauge would underreport. You're supposed to have the gauge away from trees/obstructions at 2 times the height of any obstruction if I remember correctly. So a 70' tree would need the gauge mounted 140' away from said tree. 

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They don't over measure Dewpoints. The argument has been that evapotranspiration near the surface gives TDs that aren't representative.

Yeah it's just the siting not the actual reading. It's like if you were looking for the dew point in your house, but put one instrument in the living room with a fire going in the hearth, and another instrument in the bathroom with the hot shower running. They both measure correctly what they are supposed to, it's just you can't compare them because the environment is different.

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I have my Davis rain gauge and 4" CoCoRaHs gauge on the same 4x4 post in the backyard. The Davis does under report a bit compared to the 4" gauge. Maybe 3 or 4%? 

 

The other issue is that having been to Kevin's house with those giant trees around... I bet ANY gauge would underreport. You're supposed to have the gauge away from trees/obstructions at 2 times the height of any obstruction if I remember correctly. So a 70' tree would need the gauge mounted 140' away from said tree. 

 

I think it's actually half...

 

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/coop/standard.htm

 

"The height of the protection should not exceed twice its distance from the gauge"

 

If I parse that correctly, a 70 foot tree, 35 feet from the gauge would be ok.

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I think it's actually half...

 

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/coop/standard.htm

 

"The height of the protection should not exceed twice its distance from the gauge"

 

If I parse that correctly, a 70 foot tree, 35 feet from the gauge would be ok.

 

Interesting - that makes sense. 

 

Check out the CoCoRaHS training pdf... some good stuff in here. http://cocorahs.com/media/docs/CoCoRaHS_Training_8.1.pdf

 

Info on pg 19 re: siting

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Oh Zeus, lol.

An easy way to test it is to stick one of the CoCoRAHS approved stratus rain gauges next to the Davis.

We've discussed it several times in the NNE thread. Ask Eek, I think he compares his Davis with a manual gauge and finds it is lower sometimes.

 

Which is fine, if sited properly. If there are trees/building/obstructions too close to the guage, then it will need to be resited or the guages will continue to under report.

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Interesting - that makes sense. 

 

Check out the CoCoRaHS training pdf... some good stuff in here. http://cocorahs.com/media/docs/CoCoRaHS_Training_8.1.pdf

 

Info on pg 19 re: siting

 

Hmmm. Definitely conflicts with the info from the coop site.  Cocorahs seems to err on the side of greater distance from the obstructions. 

 

As an aside, I get a kick out of meteorology slide decks, always replete with 3-5 corny jokes.... :lol:

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I've always heard with measuring snow that the hole in the forest canopy needs to have a radius equal to or more than the height of the surrounding trees...I'd assume it's the same with rain. IE...you need to be 40ft away in all directions of 40ft tall trees.

does your 2500 station conform? How about the stake? from your pics seems to catch tree fall?

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The tippers underreport with heavy rainfall and wind. Some of the liquid is lost as it "tips" during +RA. Then you have turbulent undercatch during strong winds. I calibrate mine to my cocorahs gauge as well.

 

Post from you on eastern in '06... good stuff:

 

My Davis is rarely far off from the manual 4" cans. The problem with the tipper is that the higher the rainfall rates you have the more splashover (lost rain) you will experience. This is especially true once you get into the 1.5-2"/hr rates...even if they are short lived.

You can calibrate the Davis tipping bucket by slowly pouring 544mL of water into the cone. Davis I believe does this over a 45 minute span. The result should be 1.00" reported by the gauge. If you can't measure out exactly 544mL you can do what I did. I found the volume of 1" of rain for the 4" diameter can and related that to the Davis gauge. After you do the calculations, you'd find that 1" of water in the 4" diameter gauge would equal ~0.38" reported by the Davis gauge. Of course, the Davis gauge uses the weight of water for reporting while the manual gauges use the volume of water...so there may be a bit of a discrepancy there. Someone else would have to figure out the consequences of doing it this way. That said, my amounts are still pretty much in line with the manual gauge and KMHT.

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