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CoCoRaHS Rain Gauges for sale (SOLD)

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CW2274:

--- Quote from: WheatonRon on May 15, 2023, 08:56:49 PM --- A newer gauge has been released—called a “Tropo” significantly more expensive — $88.25 to be exact from weatheryourway.com.

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This is the only place I see that currently has the Tropo for sale. Gotta C-note lyin' around doin' nothin'?

https://store.climalytic.com/tropo-gauge/

WheatonRon:
I think posters in this Forum are generally serious about weather and collecting and sharing results via CoCoRaHS, WU, CWOP, etc. But let’s not kid ourselves. Unless you live without any trees or houses nearby, our measurements are, at best, good-faith estimates, particularly in the winter when snow is drifting and blowing. In fact in the winter, I use two Stratus gauges—one to collect precipitation and the other is kept inside keeping warm ready to replace the gauge outside, if necessary, should snow or other precipitation exist in the outside gauge at measurement time. If the outside gauge has precipitation, I replace it with the warm one from inside, and measure the water content in the outside gauge by weighing the gauge including the water/snow content, deducting the weight of the gauge itself, and reporting that. I fail to see how the new Tropo gauge will help in the winter—the rest of the year—marginally so. That said, the ole Stratus gauge was due for a refresh. However, at a $100 a pop, (double that if you follow my winter approach) many “newbies” may be chased off due to pricing—and that is unfortunate.

DaleReid:
I agree with Mike that the idea of the most accurate gizmo we can afford is the one we should like to have.

That being said, I know that there are design/manufacturing errors which an ethical company would strive to reduce as much as possible, and then there are measurement errors which are beyond any control by mankind.

I think of two situations which I've seen in the last year.  Looking across a field, I see waves of heavier snowfall coming down, and I know that one spot on the field will have  a tenth of an inch more than the field just a hundred yards away.   Which is correct?  Similarly, I've seen downpours with sheets of rain (a term I've heard and seen used in books, movies, etc) where a visibly more dense rainfall is occurring.  I 'm sure that it would be enough to throw an additional 0.01" into a  gauge.  The reason I say this is going back to an engineer friend who retired and has a strong interest in weather.  One summer he put up on his flat garage roof a veritable farm of rain gauges.  Expensive ones, tippers, NWS or old Weather Bureau one that he borrowed from me and open throated ones from the Stratus to the give away ones that  farm implement companies used to give away for advertising.  Anyway the roof was no where near any influence from trees etc. and was about as good of a setup as one could get.  During the summer rains most results were within a few 0.01s of each other and some were just hard to know (the old glass tube without volume amplification to get more careful results).

One rainstorm had one of his most consistently 'accurate' sets show an interesting anomaly; it was off nearly a 2/10ths of an inch, while almost all the others were in close agreement.  He kept great records and this had not happened before, nor did it happen again all the rest of the rain season. There were periods of extremely heavy downpours for a few moments, and the only thing he could come up with is a micro rain band dumped a lot right in the spot where that gauge was, and the others were not showing extra.

My point is that if you have a poorly made gauge with no calibration such as a large throat, volume amplifying system, and you get one of those rain excesses, you'll measure what you get and there isn't anything you can do to be 'more accurate' despite the manufacturer's attempts to fine tune their molds, their inscription and fiducial marks and so on.

I have (eBay) RM Young and a couple of High Sierra gauges which go for over $500 from the manufacturer, and they tip consistently and yet agree with the $80 Rainwise within a couple hundredths of an inch, spread out over a 5 acre place where I live.  spending oodles of money doesn't not make my rain reports any more accurate as long as my tippers are calibrated with one of those slow-drain drip bottles, or I have measured the diameter of my collection gauges throat and figured out how many grams of water should have been collected, then weighing the water and seeing where the tick marks on the barrel are.

There may be things about the gauge which make it easier to handle, or can be used for snow cores or such, but 4% error isn't too bad, and will be overwhelmed by a rain band deluge if one happens to be in your weather pattern. 

That being said, I'm going to check not rainstorm agreement, but pull a gauge in and do the careful throat diameter measurements, and weigh the water to within a tenth of a gram and do my best to see that the gauges I have do have accurate tick marks on them.  Always something to do when you have measurements in your hobby!
Dale

Cutty Sark Sailor:
FYI
Email excerpt from LMK Louisville KY:
--- Quote ---...a new CoCoRaHS rain gauge ... sent to us (and other NWS offices), unsolicited, by Climalytic & CoCoRaHS.  ... it happened to arrive at LMK the day before we were scheduled to move the rain gauges to their new location along the sidewalk, so we took the opportunity to go ahead and install the new CoCoRaHS gauge and retire the old CoCoRaHS gauge....


--- End quote ---
Message goes on to emphasize that 'Co-Op' stations continue to use the official 8" NWS gauge for official NWS reporting....

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