WRS-76
Performance Assessments of Precipitation Gages for Snow Measurement
Abstract
Snow measurement with a precipitation gage is affected by snow
properties, air turbulence and gage configuration. Various shields are
used to reduce the effects of these factors and to improve the catch
performance of the gage. In this investigation, comparisons were made
of the following gages and shields: the Belfort weighing-recording gage
without a shield, with an Alter shield, with a restrained Alter shield,
with a Low Wyoming shield and with a Raised Wyoming shield; a Russian
gage with and without Tretyakov shields and with a restrained Tretyakov
shield; a Swedish gage with and without a shield; the Fischer and Porter
gage with and without a shield; and a modified Fischer and Porter gage
with a modified shield. In addition, Hamon's proposed dual-gage
approach was tested and the effects of wind speed and air temperature
on the gage catch were also analyzed.
Precipitation measured by an Alter-shielded gage in a forest
opening was used as the standard catch. The catch by the Raised Wyoming-shielded
gage was found to be free from wind effects and to correlate
well with the standard catch. All gages without shields of any kind
performed very poorly. Other gage performances fell between these two
extremes.
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