Chilbolton drop-counting raingauge data
Robin Hogan
Elizabeth Brand
12 March 2001
Introduction
A number of raingauges operate routinely at Chilbolton, England
(51.1445°N, 1.4370°W). The dataset described here is from a
drop-counting raingauge on the Chilbolton 500 m Test Range. This
model has a 150 cm2 collector, and the data have been
averaged over 30 s. Because it operates by releasing the collected
rainwater as drops of a constant size, which it then counts, the data
are quantised according to the size of the drops; in a 30-s period
the rain rate is quantised to multiples of 0.48 mm hr-1.
Because of the need to take instruments offline for maintenance, the
data are not all from exactly the same raingauge, although the
raingauges used were all of the same type.
Data format
The data is provided as daily ASCII files containing a simple
seven-line header which looks like this:
Rainfall Rate Data for the roof mounted Drop Counting Gauge at Chilbolton
Data integration time is 30 seconds
Date = 20000322
TIME DROP GAUGE
sec mm/hr
followed by two columns containing the seconds since midnight UTC and
the rain rate in mm hr-1. The recorded times indicate the
end of each sample period.
Conditions of use
If Chilbolton raingauge data is used in any publication or report then
acknowledgement must be given to the Radiocommunications Research Unit
at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for providing the data.
Who to contact
If you have problems obtaining the data, please contact the British
Atmospheric Data Centre. If you have problems, queries or comments
regarding the data themselves, please contact raingauges@chobs.rl.ac.uk.