Rain Rate Determinations from Electronic Weight Measurements: Instrument Description and Data Reduction Techniques

摘要

Attenuation of electromagnetic radiation by rain may pose problems in the operation of many of the existing or proposed military surveillance, weapon guidance, and communications systems. The evaluation and/or calibration of such systems may be possible with a high-resolution rain rate meter. The Air Force Geophysics Lab. has designed and constructed a prototype instrument for the derivation of rain rate from electronic measurements of collected water. This device gives 30-s averaged-rate-values every 3 s and produces rain rate records that show a detailed structure of the rainfall variability. Since this measuring concept does not require a particular weight or volume of collected water before a reading, it is a considerable improvement over the rain measuring instruments currently in general use. This report describes the prototype instrument and specifies the data reduction techniques that have been devised for this particular rain-measuring concept. The information contained should enable others to construct similar devices and avoid some of the problems that plagued our initial efforts. Consideration of the recommendations made in this report may result in more efficient instruments and/or better methods of data reduction. Keywords include: Electronic balance, and weight measurements.