An Evaluation of the United States Standard 8-in. Nonrecording Raingage at the Valdai Polygon, Russia

Abstract

A unique set of data from Valdai, Russia, (previously unreported in the United States) is used to evaluate the ubiquitous standard 8-in.-diameter raingage that has been used for over 100 years at tens of thousands of United States stations. The results of the Valdai analyses (where the 8-in. raingage measurements had been analyzed during 4 years of parallel observations with the etalon raingage) are consistent with other findings summarized in this paper. Rain undercatch (unshielded) is about 4%. Evaporation losses from the raingage and wetting losses (where part of the water stays on the funnel and bucket walls of the raingage and is not measured) have been estimated and were found to be fairly small. To put this in perspective, snow undercatch (as reported by others) can be several tens of percent for windy, unshielded sites.