INTERPRETATION

OF
PRECIPITATION
DATA
PRECIPITATION Chapter 3
• 1. Estimating missing precipitation data at a
station
• 2. Checking inconsistency in particular data at
a station
• 3. Averaging precipitation over an area
Estimating missing precipitation data at a station
Some precipitation stations may have short breaks in the records because of
absence of the observer or because of instrumental failures. It is often
necessary to estimate this missing record.
The station whose data is missing is called interpolation station and gauging
stations whose data are used to calculate the missing station data are called
index stations. Missing precipitation data is estimated by two commonly used
methods.

• Arithmetic Mean Method

• Normal Ratio Method (NRM)

Arithmetic Mean Method
Arithmetic mean method is used when normal annual precipitation is within
10% of the gauge for which data are being reconstructed. This method is
least accurate however. Where 'n' is the number of nearby stations, 'Pi' is
precipitation at ith station and 'Px' is missing precipitation.

Px = (Pa + Pb + Pc)/3

Where:
Px = precipitation at the missing location
Pi = precipitation at index station
N = number of rain gauges
Normal ratio method (NRM)
Normal ratio method (NRM) is used when the normal annual precipitation at any of the index
station differs from that of the interpolation station by more than 10%. In this method, the
precipitation amounts at the index stations are weighted by the ratios of their normal annual
precipitation data in a relationship of the form:

Where:
Pm = precipitation at the missing location
Pi = precipitation at index station
Nx = the normal annual precipitation value for the 'x' station
Ni = average annual rain at gauge
N = number of rain gauges
Example
Find out the missing storm precipitation of station 'C' given in the following table:

Station A B C D E
Storm precipitation (cm) 9.7 8.3 ---- 11.7 8.0

Normal Annual precipitation (cm) 100.3 109.5 93.5 125.7 117.5

10% of Nc = 93.5 x 10/100 = 9.35

93.5 + 9.35 = 102.85
And by subtracting 10% we get a value of 84.15
So Na, Nb, Nd or Ne values are to be checked for the range 102.85 to 84.15.
If any value of Na, Nb, Nd or Ne lies beyond this range, then normal ratio method would be used. It is clear from
data in table above that Nb, Nd and Ne values are out of this range so the normal ratio method is applicable here,
according to which

Pc = (1/4)(93.5 x 9.7/100.3 + 93.5 x 8.3/109.5 + 93.5 x 11.7/125.7 + 93.5 x 8.0/117.5) = 7.8 cm

Calculate for station K the missing rainfall data for the month of July 1983 when the rainfall
data for other three stations J, P and N are available as follows:

Calculation of Missing Rainfall Data

Checking inconsistency in a particular data record at a station

• By a technique called Double Mass Analysis.

• It is used to check the consistency of many kinds of hydrologic data by

comparing date for a single station with that of a pattern composed of the
data from several other stations in the area

• The double-mass curve can be used to adjust inconsistent precipitation

data
Double Mass Curve Analysis
• compute cumulative rainfall amounts for suspect gauge and check gauges
• lot cumulative rainfall amounts against each other (divergence from a straight line indicates error)
• multiplying erroneous data after change by a correction factor k where
Averaging precipitation over an area

It is the amount of precipitation which can be assumed uniform

over an area. If the average precipitation over an area is known
then total rain volume of water can be computed for that area.

Rain volume = Pavg × A

Methods for computing Average precipitation over an area

There are some widely used methods to compute average precipitation over
an area, but the most common of these used are:

Areal Precipitation Estimation

• Arithmetic mean method

• Theissen polygon method

• Isohytal method
Arithmetic Mean Method

The simplest of all is the Arithmetic Mean Method, which taken an average of all the rainfall depths as shown.

Rainfall Recorded in the Four Rain Gauges

Average rainfall as the arithmetic mean of all the records of the four rain gauges, as shown below:

Average rainfall = (5 + 8 + 12 + 15)/4 = 10.0 mm.

Theissen Polygon Method

This method, first proposed by Thiessen in 1911, considers the

representative area for each rain gauge. These could also be thought of
as the areas of influence of each rain gauge.
a. Joining the rain gauge station locations by straight lines to form triangles.
b. Bisecting the edges of the triangles to form the so-called “Thiessen polygons”.
c. Calculate the area enclosed around each rain gauge station bounded by the polygon edges (and the
catchment boundary, wherever appropriate) to find the area of influence corresponding to the rain gauge

For the given example, the “weighted” average rainfall over the
catchment is determined as:
Isohyetal Method
This is considered as one of the most accurate methods, but it is dependent on
the skill and experience of the analyst. The method requires the plotting of
isohyets as shown in the figure and calculating the areas enclosed either between
the isohyets or between an isohyet and the catchment boundary. The areas may
be measured with a planimeter if the catchment map is drawn to a scale.
Example: Assume that the areas enclosed between two consecutive isohyets and are calculated as under:
Given:
Area I = 40 km2
Area II = 80 km2
Area III = 70 km2
Area IV = 50 km

Total catchment area = 240 km2

The areas II and III fall between two isohyets each.

Hence, these areas may be thought of as corresponding to the following rainfall depths:
Area II: Corresponds to (10 + 15)/2 = 12.5 mm rainfall depth
Area III: Corresponds to (5 + 10)/2 = 7.5 mm rainfall depth

For Area I, we would expect rainfall to be more than 15 mm

but since there is no record, a rainfall depth of 15mm is
accepted. Similarly, for Area IV, a rainfall depth of 5 mm has
to be taken.
Depth-Area-Duration (DAD) analysis

is done to determine the maximum amounts of rainfall within various

durations over areas of various sizes. The preparation of DAD curves is done
in following steps: ... Examine the rainfall records of the region in which
catchment area under consideration is located.
VARIATIONS IN
PRECIPITAION
GEOGRAPHIC VARIATION

TIME VARIATION

RECORD RAINFALLS