HYDRAULICS & HYDROLOGY (ECH4413)

WEEK 2 HYDROLOGY (Precipitation)

PowerPoint Slides by MOHAMAD SHAKRI

Last Updated:10 December 2013

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PRECIPITATION

Malaysia is a tropical climate country. The type of precipitation we are interested in is rain (water drops from the sky having between 0.5 mm to

6.0 mm).

Type of rain is dependent on the factors responsible for carrying the moist air.

Last Updated:10 December 2013

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TYPES OF RAIN
1.

Convective Rain
Due to warm moist air rising and cooling to form cloud and subsequently rainfall. Localized. Typical example are late afternoon thunderstorms that develop from all-day heating of air.

http://www.reec.nsw.edu.au/
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TYPES OF RAIN
2.

Orographic Rain
Results from ocean air stream passing over land and being deflected upward by mountains, thus cooling below saturation temperature and spilling moisture. Mostly deposited on the windward slopes.

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TYPES OF RAIN
3.

Cyclonic Rain
When low pressure exists, air tends to move into them from surrounding areas and in doing so displaces low pressure air upward to cool and precipitate rain. Associated with cold fronts.

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TYPES OF RAIN
4.

Frontal Rain
Associated with the boundaries of air masses where one mass is colder than the other and so intrudes a cool wedge under it, raising the warm air to form clouds and rain. Rain areas may be very large.

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FORM OF PRECIPITATION
1. Drizzle Light steady fine sprinkle of water droplets of size of about diameter 0.1 mm to 0.5 mm diameter Intensity is less than 1.0 mm/hr because of small droplets are floating in the air Rainfall intensity (i) is defined as the intensity of rainfall of a chosen frequency that lasts for a duration equal to the time concentration

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FORM OF PRECIPITATION
2. Rain Condensed water vapour of atmosphere falling in the forms of drops from clouds Rainfall: used to describe precipitation in the form of the drops of size ranging from 0.5 mm to 6.0 mm in diameter Drop more than 6.0 mm tend to break up into drops of smaller sizes during its fall from the clouds

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FORM OF PRECIPITATION
3. Glaze Drizzle (fine rain drop) come into contact with cold object at about freezing point water drops freeze to form an ice coating known as glaze and freezing rain 4. Sleet & Ice Pellets Precipitation of snow and rain simultaneously Form of frozen raindrops of transparent grains Formed while falling the air at subfreezing temperature

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FORM OF PRECIPITATION
5. Snow & Snowflakes Consists of ice crystals. Formed when water vapour condense to ice Increasing size the snowflakes start falling on the surface as snowfall Density snow: 0.06 to 0.15 g/cm3 Usually to assume an average density of 0.1 gm/cm3

Others: Hail, Dew, Fog and Mist

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RAIN MEASUREMENT
Assignment 1

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PRECIPITATION ANALYSIS

Point Rainfall rainfall data measured by 1 rain gauging station. Areal Rainfall usually taken as the average of the rainfall from a few rain gauging stations. Analysis of rainfall is usually based on linear combinations of available data and performed to either fill in missing rainfall data or estimate the Mean Areal Precipitation.

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DETERMINATION OF MISSING RAINFALL DATA

1.

Arithmetic Average method

Px ( P 1P 2 P n ...) / n

1.

Px ( N x( P 1 N1 P 2 N2 P n N n ...)) / n
1. 2.

Normal Ratio method

Inverse Distance method / Quadrant method Double Mass Curve

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DETERMINATION OF MISSING RAINFALL DATA

Example The annual precipitation at station P,Q,R and S are 80.97 cm, 67.59 cm, 76.28 cm and 92.01 cm respectively. In a certain year, the data at station S was missing due to a faulty gauge. Stations P, Q and R recorded annual precipitations of 91.11 cm, 72.23 cm and 79.89 cm respectively. Determine the missing data at station S

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ANALYSIS OF RAINFALL DATA

3 methods to estimate the mean areal rainfall:

1. 2.

Arithmetic Mean method Thiessen Polygon method

3.

Isohyetal method

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ARITHMETIC MEAN METHOD

Quick and easy method Basically gets the average value. Only rain gauges within the watershed / catchment area can be used.

1 P Pi n i 1

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THIESSEN POLYGON METHOD

For areas with an approximately even spread of

rain gauges.

Can take into account rain gauges outside of the

watershed / catchment area.

This method assumes that the rainfall at any point in the area i is the same as the rainfall measured by rain gauge i.

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THIESSEN POLYGON METHOD

AP
i 1 i i

Topography is not taken into account. On paper, area can be measured using a planimeter.

P Mean Areal Rainfall Ai Area of polygon representing rain gauge i AT Total area of all polygons Pi Average rainfall at rain gauge i
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AT

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ISOHYETAL METHOD

The most accurate among the list in this lecture. Why? Because it also considers topography. An Isohyet is a line joining points of equal precipitation on a map.

P
i 1

Ai ,i 1 Pi Pi 1 AT 2

Ai,i+1 = Area between isohyet i and isohyet i+1

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REFERENCES

Wilson, EM 1990, Engineering Hydrology, 4th Edition, Palgrave, Hampshire.

Wanielista, M, Kersten, R, Eaglin, R 1997, Hydrology:

Water Quality and Quality Control, 2nd Edition, John

Wiley & Sons, New York.

Last Updated:10 December 2013

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