Rain gauge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_gauge

Rain gauge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A rain gauge (also known as an udometer, pluviometer, or an ombrometer) is a type of instrument used by meteorologists and hydrologists to
gather and measure the amount of liquid precipitation over a set period of time.

History
The first known rainfall records were kept by the Ancient Greeks, about 500 B.C. About 400 B.C. people in India also began to record rainfall.[1] The
readings were correlated against expected growth, and used as a basis for land taxes. In the Arthashastra, used for example in Magadha, precise
standards were set as to grain production. Each of the state storehouses were equipped with a rain gauge to classify land for taxation purposes.[2]
In 1441, the Cheugugi was invented during the reign of King Sejong the Great of the Joseon Dynasty in Korea as the first standardized rain gauge.
[3][4][5]
In 1662, Christopher Wren created the first tipping-bucket rain gauge in Britain in collaboration with Robert Hooke.[3] Hooke also designed a
manual gauge with a funnel that made measurements throughout 1695.

Systematic measurement
It was Richard Towneley who was the first to make systematic rainfall measurements over a period of 15 years from 1677 to 1694, publishing his
records in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Towneley called for more measurements elsewhere in the country to compare the
rainfall in different regions,[6] although only William Derham appears to have taken up Towneley's challenge. They jointly published the rainfall
measurements for Towneley Park and Upminster in Essex for the years 1697 to 1704.[7]
The famous naturalist Gilbert White took measurements to determine the mean rainfall from 1779 to 1786, although it was his brother in law, Thomas
Barker who made regular and meticulous measurements for 59 years, recording temperature, wind, barometric pressure, rainfall and clouds. His
meteorological records are a valuable resource for knowledge of the 18th century British climate. He was able to demonstrate that the average rainfall
varied greatly from year to year with little discernible pattern.[8]

National coverage and modern gauges

The meteorologist George James Symons published the first annual volume of British Rainfall in 1860. This pioneering work contained rainfall
records from 168 land stations in England and Wales. He was elected to the council of the British meteorological society in 1863 and made it his
life's work to investigate rainfall within the British Isles. He set up a voluntary network of observers, who collected data which was returned to him
for analysis. So successful was he in this object that by 1866 he was able to show results which gave a fair representation of the distribution of
rainfall, and the number of recorders gradually increased until the last volume of British Rainfall which he lived to edit (that for 1899) contained

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