ABSTRACT
The objective of precipitation measurement is to determine the spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation, primarily rain and snow. Historically, precipitation has been measured with gages, which capture samples of the precipitation for direct measurement. Gage measurements of precipitation have limitations, especially for operational meteorological and hydrological purposes such as short period weather and flash flood forecasting. These limitations include:
1. The density of measurements in most gage networks is not sufficient for assessment of precipitation from thunderstorms in small watersheds. More-or-less typical precipitation networks for climatological purposes have a gage density of about one gage every 30 km (900 km2 area). The highest precipitation intensities in a thunderstorm cell occupy a much smaller area, so could easily be missed in a fixed gage network.
