Sunday 14 June 2015

New rain gauge!


Unfortunately, it's not metric, but it is a much more efficient and accurate gauge!

I have to interrupt my post for a BULLETIN: 



Wood duck #2 on nest from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

It needs to be attached to a piece of wood, sliding on and off that makes it easier to empty and repost. I saw it at Lee Valley Tools, and ordered it on their 'free P & H" blitz. With all our health issues, I've had to ensure there were things to keep me busy. It's a serious gauge! (I keep telling the kids we are spending the family fortune, so suck it up, buttercups!)

" The Stratus™ is guaranteed accurate to 1/100th of an inch!"

and...

Stratus™ Rain Gauge, a precision weather instrument manufactured to United States Weather Bureau specifications."

I walked down through the meadow, in my flip flops, and it was flooded with all our rain. (We had 52mm = 2" Monday, and then more Tuesday.) Lanark County has very shallow geology, and the lake where I canoe is only 60' deep at its max. There is a lot of pooling of water, until it runs off into the bogs, or the frog pond, where the meadow drains.

Now, I'm not a serious weather person, like hubby (who checks the on-line radars several times a day) I just like math and playing around with the data. However, with all our trips to the city for healthcare appointments (36 so far, #37 in July), we do watch for snow warnings, and how hot or cold or rainy it will be.

The experts debate this one, Stratus, and explain that you can measure snow by weight. I just use a ruler!
I use Dashboard to convert to metric.

There are forums where they talk about greasing the sides of the cup and tubes – mixed notions on that one!

The precision experts say to swing the tubs, centrifuge-style, to ensuring you get the drops from the side of the tube. I must admit I've done this, seems silly for my fun blog!

It took me a couple of days to figure out where to put it. Actually, it arrived last week, when we had our granddaughters, and I just left it until this week to figure out.

This really doesn't work for small amounts.
It's just pretty!
Tuesday: 20 mm (0.79")
same day: 0.65" (16.51mm)

It has an inner tube,
which measure <1" accurately.

Clever brackets which slide
onto the piece on the post.
There it is, on the middle deck.
You can see the dead Cherry Tree.
It's not supposed to be under a tree.
No problem now!

I installed the bracket on a piece of wood,
which I attached to the deck.

10 comments:

Linda aka Crafty Gardener said...

I love free shipping times from Lee Valley. We recently found out there will be a new Lee Valley store opening this Fall in Kingston. We'll be visiting for sure.
I thought we had broke a record for rainfall on Friday for our area as there was so much, but it wasn't so, according to the weather office at CFB Trenton.

Out To Pasture said...

Those rain measurement devices look like fun. I usually rely on my rubber boots, which made a lot of squelching sounds on my walk to the back of our property yesterday. And my poor veg garden is too sodden to hoe. The weeds are happy! Best of luck to the second wood duck and her fledglings.

Nancy J said...

Looks great to me, and there is always something good about tackling a new project. Accuracy to the 1/100th!!! I like it. All OK here, next appt. in Wellington moved from 19th June to 24th June, at my request.. a much better time of day for us, than having to stay in Wellington overnight, after what was going to be ,starting at 2.30,maybe a 4 hour assessment..

EG CameraGirl said...

Oh, you just reminded me that my husband asked me to find out rain gauge! :)

Kay said...

I'm afraid a rain gauge right now would show that it's been very dry the last few day. We could sure use some rain.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
Adding to your other little projects round the place - worth every cent I'd say!!! Gal's gotta have interests... YAM xx

Gill - That British Woman said...

well it's certainly getting a work out this weekend/week

Red said...

That's a pretty fancy rain gauge. It's much better than the freebie I had.

William Kendall said...

We really have had a lot of rain in the past few days!

Powell River Books said...

It looks just like the one we've had since we bought the cabin in 2001. In a bad wind story a wooden spool that used to hold steel cable that we were using as a table (a pretty hefty I might mention) was swept off the cabin deck and smashed it to smithereens on the way into the lake. Wayne is getting a new one just like the old one, and for him (and me), inches are much easier to understand. We taught metrics in school, but never used it in daily life. - Margy