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Death of DroughtStein Discussion


Bostonseminole
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1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

I'm not sure how accurate my gauge could even be since the rain blows sideways here constantly. 

Like Will said, rain does weird things sometimes, especially in the automated gauges during heavy rain... I sort of know the ones around here that stand out.  Easiest thing is buy the $37 Stratus that CoCoRAHS uses or advises and it’s a very easy check then... it’s either in the bucket or it isn’t lol.

I wish the Davis stations had a reservoir to catch the rainfall so you could go back and manually check it too.

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0.79" at 7 AM, bringing Sept up to 0.94".  Points just west had 1.10" and 0.95" and we'll certainly get over the 1" mark, especially if that narrow line of RA+ holds together long enough.  It's a good start but no more than that.  Very windy outside the Augusta office, especially with the Venturi effect between our building and the one about 100' to our east.    Sandy River already responding, now 10 cf above the record low after owning it the past 3 days.  Typical flow regime for a river without major lakes or wetlands in its drainage.  Flow has been down to low 30s and record high is 51,700 in 1987, about 1,500 times greater.

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1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

Just ordered one! Will be able to compare next time it rains to see if my PWS is off the mark.

Yeah I don’t get why they do it, Dendrite knows more about those stations but I know several local PWS in the area that seem fine in light to moderate events but then in any torrential rain they seem to tick upwards real fast.  
 

The Vermont Electric CO-OP has one that in most rain events seem ok, maybe a tad high, but then in a heavy rain event they rise much faster than others for whatever reason.  Another one in Johnson and one in Hardwick always stand out around here, this morning they are about an inch higher than neighbors.  Like you said there’s no weird spikes, just gradual increases but the rain rate is always higher.

Wait till tomorrow and see what that guy at 1800ft reports, it definitely poured hard after 7am.

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16 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Just ordered one! Will be able to compare next time it rains to see if my PWS is off the mark.

I use both and have had to adjust the tipper on the weather station to match as closely as possible to the stratus, Heavy rain rates seem to affect both of them more so then lt/mod rainfall, My guess is getting more deflection from droplets in heavier precip, You will get them close but they won't match exact.

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1 minute ago, dryslot said:

I use both and have had to adjust the tipper on the weather station to match as closely as possible to the stratus, Heavy rain rates seem to affect both of them more so then lt/mod rainfall, My guess is getting more deflection from droplets in heavier precip, You will get them close but they won't match exact.

It was kind of weird that the CoCoRaHS observer measured exactly 1" from 12-7. Seems a little too clean to me. I'm guessing that's just because his manual gauge was full. I assume he has some other method to catch any overage once the gauge fills up?

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Just now, PhineasC said:

It was kind of weird that the CoCoRaHS observer measured exactly 1" from 12-7. Seems a little too clean to me. I'm guessing that's just because his manual gauge was full. I assume he has some other method to catch any overage once the gauge fills up?

The Stratus that they all use (that’s what I use) has a massive over-flow basin... that thing can take like a foot of rain.  

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3 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

It was kind of weird that the CoCoRaHS observer measured exactly 1" from 12-7. Seems a little too clean to me. I'm guessing that's just because his manual gauge was full. I assume he has some other method to catch any overage once the gauge fills up?

If he's using the stratus, The over flow should be a non factor, It goes into the outer cylinder which he could never fill up, Once the smaller gauge is full, You pour it out and fill it back up with the overflow from the larger cyclinder in 1.0" increments or until its empty to get you final tally.

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5 minutes ago, dryslot said:

I use both and have had to adjust the tipper on the weather station to match as closely as possible to the stratus, Heavy rain rates seem to affect both of them more so then lt/mod rainfall, My guess is getting more deflection from droplets in heavier precip, You will get them close but they won't match exact.

No PWS here but prior to getting the Stratus for cocorahs in 2009, I used a 5-gallon bucket which fortuitously had a catchment area exactly 20 times that of an old steel can (Welch's grape juice concentrate) and applied the expansion factor.  Each year I'll run both a few times and they've remained within 2-3% (or less) of each other, with no trend of one always higher than the other.  I still use the bucket when cold wx arrives; I've read many times that the outer cylinder is freeze-up safe but I don't really believe it.  When we were in SNJ spending Christmas 2018 with family, back home we had 2.17" RA on 12/21-22. By the time we got home on the 27th it was an ice block in the bucket and had bowed the bottom down about 1" in its center, w/o breaking it, thankfully, so a melt-out measurement was possible.  Has anyone actually tested an outer cylinder by freezing 2"+ in it?  Color me skeptical, especially as the alternative works just fine.

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Just now, dryslot said:

GFS was much closer then the euro here as well, That's pretty troubling to me heading into winter.

GFS seemed more stable too... the EURO was going east and west with a lot more variability it seemed.  Hard in that regard to say exactly what the Euro had as the past two days were all different it seemed, lol. 

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1 minute ago, tamarack said:

No PWS here but prior to getting the Stratus for cocorahs in 2009, I used a 5-gallon bucket which fortuitously had a catchment area exactly 20 times that of an old steel can (Welch's grape juice concentrate) and applied the expansion factor.  Each year I'll run both a few times and they've remained within 2-3% (or less) of each other, with no trend of one always higher than the other.  I still use the bucket when cold wx arrives; I've read many times that the outer cylinder is freeze-up safe but I don't really believe it.  When we were in SNJ spending Christmas 2018 with family, back home we had 2.17" RA on 12/21-22. By the time we got home on the 27th it was an ice block in the bucket and had bowed the bottom down about 1" in its center, w/o breaking it, thankfully, so a melt-out measurement was possible.  Has anyone actually tested an outer cylinder by freezing 2"+ in it?  Color me skeptical, especially as the alternative works just fine.

The problem i had was with the inner cylinder in the winter, Water froze and expanded and put a bulge in it so i had to buy a new inner cylinder and no longer leave either one out in the winter now.

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1 minute ago, tamarack said:

No PWS here but prior to getting the Stratus for cocorahs in 2009, I used a 5-gallon bucket which fortuitously had a catchment area exactly 20 times that of an old steel can (Welch's grape juice concentrate) and applied the expansion factor.  Each year I'll run both a few times and they've remained within 2-3% (or less) of each other, with no trend of one always higher than the other.  I still use the bucket when cold wx arrives; I've read many times that the outer cylinder is freeze-up safe but I don't really believe it.  When we were in SNJ spending Christmas 2018 with family, back home we had 2.17" RA on 12/21-22. By the time we got home on the 27th it was an ice block in the bucket and had bowed the bottom down about 1" in its center, w/o breaking it, thankfully, so a melt-out measurement was possible.  Has anyone actually tested an outer cylinder by freezing 2"+ in it?  Color me skeptical, especially as the alternative works just fine.

I cracked my outer Stratus one winter with ice, had to get a new one.  My fault, it was frozen with ice and I dropped it by accident on the porch.  Thing shattered with a frozen hockey puck in the bottom.

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1 minute ago, powderfreak said:

GFS seemed more stable too... the EURO was going east and west with a lot more variability it seemed.  Hard in that regard to say exactly what the Euro had as the past two days were all different it seemed, lol. 

It had a lot of fluctuation the last several runs for here, It varied from 0.50" to 1.5".

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