2.1 Errors and Adjustments for WMO-SPICE Tipping-Bucket Precipitation Gauges

Monday, 8 January 2018: 10:30 AM
Room 13AB (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
John Kochendorfer, NOAA, Oak Ridge, TN; and M. E. Earle, A. Reverdin, R. Nitu, R. Rasmussen, Y. A. Roulet, S. Buisan, S. D. Landolt, and T. Laine

Although some countries employ weighing precipitation gauges in their monitoring networks, the majority of automated solid precipitation measurements are recorded using heated tipping-bucket precipitation gauges. Despite this fact, the performance of heated tipping-bucket gauges for the measurement of solid precipitation has not been well characterized. Tipping-bucket gauges can suffer from significant response lags, as precipitation accumulated in the gauge funnel must be melted in sufficient quantity to trigger a full tip before being measured. In addition, underestimates of measured precipitation may be worse for snowfall in a tipping-bucket gauge than for other types of precipitation and gauges. Several heated tipping-bucket gauges were evaluated in the World Meteorological Organization Solid Precipitation InterComparison Experiment (WMO-SPICE). The results of this intercomparison were used to evaluate potential corrections for the undercatch of solid precipitation typically exhibited by heated tipping-bucket gauges.
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