The featured chart is an illustration of one of the joys of automated weather stations. The joy being plugged tipping buckets. Precipitation is typically measured by a device called a tipping bucket gauge. This gauge has a funnel that frequently gets obstructed by just about anything you can imagine. When this happens, it greatly constricts the flow of water into the tipping bucket and if not completely obstructed, will cause a the sensor to report tips slowly over time as water seeps through. The featured chart shows the result as the tipping bucket at the Cedar Rapids ISU Soil Moisture site is currently plugged. The estimated line is based on RADAR and other data. You can notice the slow accumulation with time whereas the accumulated estimates are substantially higher. Hopefully this gauge will get unplugged later this week!

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Tags:   plugged   tippingbucket