Report on exploratory study of rain‐gage shields and enclosures at Coshocton, Ohio

Abstract

Several types of shields and enclosures were installed on standard non‐recording United States Weather Bureau type rain‐and‐snow gages near Cosnocton, Ohio, during the summer of 1937. The study as originally set up was entirely exploratory in nature, that is, to determine the relative feasibility, ease of operation, cost of installation, and maintenance of the various shields and enclosures, rather than to evaluate precisely their effects upon the catch of the rain‐and‐snow gage. It was hoped that the study would point out one type of shield or enclosure as being most suitable for installation on the large number of rain‐gages located on the watersheds being studied by the Hydrologic Division of the Soil Conservation Service, United States Department of Agriculture. A preliminary report concerning the first five months of record from experimental gages MA to MH, inclusive, and Met. R was presented in the Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, Nineteenth Annual Meeting [see 1 of “References” at end of paper]. Since that time, gages MI, MJ, and MK have been added to the group, and it is believed that sufficient information is now available to justify closing the exploratory study.

Reducing biases in estimates of precipitation over the United States: Phase 3 adjustments

“…Problems with the accuracy of precipitation measurements occur primarily for frozen precipitation and for liquid precipitation with an intensity less than 0.03 mm per minute [Riesbol, 1938[Riesbol, , 1940Larkin, 1947;Bogdanova, 1966;Sevruk, 1982;Larson and Peck, 1974;Folland 1988]. Therefore our main efforts have been to develop adjustment procedures for measurements of these two types of precipitation.…”

“…Such an assessment was made by Golubev [1991Golubev [ , 1993 for several gauges installed at the Valdai precipitation Occurrence of different types of rainfall and percent losses of measured liquid precipitation from a standard openly exposed unshielded rain gauge. For central Ohio, the empirical estimate of losses is from Coshocton, Ohio [Riesbol, 1938[Riesbol, , 1940 Table 4); but the major conclusions made for shielded gauges in his study can be applied to the U.S. Alter-shielded rain gauge and those made for his unshielded gauges to the U.S. unshielded gauges (these results are valid for a moderately windy site with a mean monthly wind at the gauge orifice height about 3 to 4 m s -• in the cold season and about 2 to 3 m s -t in the warm season). For central Ohio, the empirical estimate of losses is from Coshocton, Ohio [Riesbol, 1938[Riesbol, , 1940 Table 4); but the major conclusions made for shielded gauges in his study can be applied to the U.S. Alter-shielded rain gauge and those made for his unshielded gauges to the U.S. unshielded gauges (these results are valid for a moderately windy site with a mean monthly wind at the gauge orifice height about 3 to 4 m s -• in the cold season and about 2 to 3 m s -t in the warm season).…”

Effect of Housing Shape on the Catch of Recording Gages

“…It has also been pointed out by Riesbol (1940) that the early Fergusson recording gage consistently caught less precipitation than a nearby nonrecording gage, "due to the sloping shoulders on the recording gage which cause updrafts. "…”