Design of an improvised tipping bucket rain gauge for measurement of rain and snow precipitation

Abstract

Snow water equivalent is the amount of water contained within a snowpack. It is important to have accurate and timely winter precipitation information for agriculture and especially for flood and stream flow forecasting. Moreover, if the density of the snow is known, then the snow water equivalent data can be used to determine snow depth which is an important parameter for avalanche forecasting (McClung and Schaerer, 1993). In this paper, the design of a new tipping bucket rain gauge (TBRG) and an antifreeze-based attachment have been discussed which would measure rain as well as snow precipitation. The TBRG and the antifreeze-based attachment have been designed to reduce the shortcomings of commercial TBRGs and antifreeze-based attachments. Our TBRG provides faster rain and snow water equivalent data. The highest measurement rate for rain and snow water equivalent is found to be 375 mm/hr and 16.4 mm/hr respectively. The design considerations, field and laboratory trials and results of the TBRG and the antifreeze-based attachment have been discussed in detail in this paper.Keywords: tipping bucket rain gauge; TBRG; proximity sensor; antifreeze attachment; snow precipitation measurement.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Das, R.K. Design of an improvised tipping bucket rain gauge 45Research and Development Organisation, Government of India. Instruments developed by him include: contact-less tipping bucket rain gauge, improvised anti-freeze-based attachment for tipping bucket rain gauges, stand-alone snow temperature profiler, hand-held portable snow temperature profiler, instrument for measurement of extinction coefficient of snow, datalogging system for radiometers, solar charging system for WSN motes and 3-axis sonic wind sensor.Neelam Rup Prakash received her BE, ME and PhD from the PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh, India. Presently, she is working as Professor in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering at the PEC. She is an expert in the field of digital system design, computer aided diagnostic systems and digital communication. She has guided more than ten PhD and MTech theses.

Innovative Configuration Design of Two-Wire Tip Mechanisms for a Tipping-Bucket Rain Gauge

“…As stated, most TBRG uses reed switch as the magnetic sensor, making it the conventional tip counting component for this type of instrument. However, recorded drawbacks of this sensing method include magnetic interference when exposed near to any ferromagnetic materials and electromagnetic pulses [11], resulting in an unwanted tip detection from the instrument. A scientific fact regarding the effect of magnetism through temperature variations is also considered.…”

“…Other tip-counting methods for the TBRG were presented by [2,11] using a proximity sensor and the Hall Effect sensor by [3,14], but still covered by the electromagnetic interference problem. The potentiometer type TBRG presented by [15] also has rotary problems when exposed to dust or rust.…”

An Instrument With Constant Volume Approach for In Situ Measurement of Surface Runoff and Suspended Sediment Concentration

“…Water stage was recorded by the water level sensor and the Parshall flume equation was used to convert water stage to runoff. The runoff sensor consisted of a magnetically actuated proximity sensor and a magnetic pulse converter for runoff detection (Das & Prakash, 2011; Tabada & Loretero, 2019). The sample tube included a strainer attached at the end of the 9.5‐mm inside diameter suction line tubing.…”

Tipping Bucket Rain Gauge Data Processing System: A Review

“…Another method to design is anti-freeze attachment system along with tipping bucket rain gauge to measure rainfall and snow precipitation. This system was designed to measure the rainfall as well as the snow, which provides the data of water equivalently faster [2]. The behavior of the rain gauge tipping bucket in various form of rain intensities, such as from light rain to heavy rain is observed.…”