Subject Code: WER300S

Subject Name: Engineering Hydrology

Chapter 2 - Precipitation

Dr. Yaw O-Asante Mr. R M Mambwe

Civil Engineering Dept., Civil Engineering Dept.,
CPUT, Bellville Campus. CPUT, Bellville Campus.
ABC Building ABC Building
Room 1.34 Room 1.06
 PRECIPITATION
Precipitation includes:
 Rainfall
 Hail
 Snow
 Sleets, etc.
Precipitation regions in S/Africa
 Summer rainfall region
 Winter rainfall region
 All season rainfall
Climatic factors influencing precipitation:
 wind,
 temperature,
 atmospheric pressure and humidity.

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 Types of Precipitation
3 major types:

 Convective precipitation –
i. this is brought about by
heating of the air at the
interface with the ground.
ii. the heated air expands with
a resultant reduction in
weight.
iii. the heated air mass rises to
higher levels
iv. it becomes saturated
v. forms clouds and
vi. precipitates in the form of
light showers or
thunderstorms (typical in
the tropics). 3
 Types of Precipitation
 Orographic precipitation – this result where
i. a mountain range intercepts the moist air flow,
ii. the air is forced to ascend or rise.
iii. As it ascends it cools and
iv. will shed some or all of its water content as rain or snow.

4
 Types of Precipitation
 Cyclonic – Cyclonic precipitation results from
movement of air masses from high-pressure regions
to low-pressure regions. Two types of cyclonic
precipitation: Non-frontal and frontal
precipitations.

 Frontal – warm air is lifted over the cold air at

the contact zone between air masses.
 If the air masses are moving so that warm air
replaces colder air, the front is known as warm
front,
 If on the other hand, cold air displaces warm air, the
front is said to be cold.
 If the front is not in motion, it said to be stationary
front.

 Non-frontal – In this case, the moist warm air

mass is stationary and moving cold air mass
meets it. Thus, due to lightness of the warm air,
there is passive ascent of warm air over clod air
owing to the active under cutting. Here, there is
5
no frontal surface.
 Types of Precipitation
Types of Precipitation occurring in S/Africa

 Internal regions receive primarily convectional rainfall.

 Mountainous areas (especially the Drakensberg) receive

orographic rainfall.

 Eastern coast of S/Africa receives Frontal rainfall (cold and

warm fronts).

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 Measurement of precipitation - instrumentation
Precipitation: is measured with a
rain gauge placed in an open area.

Types of rain gauge:

 Standard rain gauge
 Tipping bucket
 Weighing precipitation gauge
 Optical rain gauge
 Acoustic rain gauge
Gauge reading intervals:
 Daily (every 24 hrs)
 Monthly
 Yearly
Records of precipitation
 South African Weather
Services (web)
 DWAF (web)
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 Determination of Precipitation – Ungauged sites
Point Precipitation
Precipitation data collected at rain stations are called point
precipitation data
Uses of point precipitation data:
 determine the frequency and character of precipitation in the vicinity of
the site.
 collectively to estimate areal variability of rain (areal precipitation)
 individually to develop design storm characteristics for small catchments
(i.e. intensity-duration-frequency curves).

Sometimes it becomes necessary to estimate point precipitation

at a given locations from recorded values at surrounding sites.
This is normally done to:
 fill missing records or
 determine representative point precipitation to be used at the point of
interest.
8
 Determination of point precipitation
10

(Distance) Weighted Average method

8

6 C
Consider that rainfall is to be estimated for
a point A 4
Quadrant 2 Quadrant 1
D 2 B

establish a set of axes (x, y) running through A

0 A

x
and determine the absolute coordinates of the 10 8 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8 10

nearest surrounding stations B, C, D, E, and F. 2 F

E
Quadrant 3 4 Quadrant 4
record or tabulate the station points, rainfall
6
values, and coordinates as shown in columns 1, 2,
3 and 4 respectively in Table 1-3. 8

10
Column 5: – calculate for each station the y

distance D2 from Point A, expressed as:

Col 1 Col 2 Col 3 Col 4 Col 5 Col 6 Col 7

D 2  X 2  Y 2 Rainfall, P
Column 6: – calculate the weights (W) for each Point (mm) ΔX ΔY (D2) W = 1/D2 PxW
station, expressed as:
A  ? 0 0      
and sum all the weights (ΣW). W 1
D2 B 1.60 4 2 20 0.05 0.08
Column 7: – calculate (PxW) for each station C 1.80 1 6 37 0.03 0.05
and sum them as: D 1.50 3 2 13 0.08 0.12
 P  W  E 2.00 3 3 18 0.06 0.11
F 1.70 2 2 8 0.13 0.21
The rainfall at the point of interest, A is therefore
ΣW = 0.33 Σ(P x W) = 0.57
calculated as:  P  W 
W Σ(P x W)/ΣW = 1.70 mm
 Determination of areal precipitation
Construction of an isohyetal map: (a) locate rain gauges
The isohyetal method and plot values; (b) interpolate between gauges; (c) plot
This method is based on isohyets.
interpolation and it closely
resembles the calculation of
contours in surveying and mapping.
The procedures are explained below:

 Plot the rain gauge locations (using

their coordinates) on a suitable map.
Record rainfall depths against each
station (see Figure a)
 Interpolate between gauges as in
(Figure b).
 Plot isohyets (lines of equal rainfall
depths) by connecting depths of same
values as in (Figure c).
 Calculate areas between two successive
isohyets (A1, A2, …An)
 Determine the average precipitation for
each area (P1, P2 …Pn). This is simply
equal to the average of the two isohyets
bounding each area.
 Calculate the average  precipitation
( Ai Pi ) for
entire catchment  the formula:
Pavefrom
 Ai
10
 Determination of areal precipitation
The Thiessen method Construction of a Thiessen diagram: (a) connect rain gauge locations; (b)
draw perpendicular bisectors; and (c) calculate Thiessen weights (A 1, A2,
The procedure for using the A3).
Thiessen method is described
below:
 Plot the rain gauge locations
(using their coordinates) on a
suitable map.
 Draw lines to connect rain
gauge locations as in Figure a.
 Draw perpendicular bisectors
to each line, Figure b.
 Measure the areas thus
allocated to each station and
express them as percentage of
the total area under
consideration. This percentage
is called the Thiessen aerial Station Area for Areal weight Rainfall, (Ai x Pi)
weights (A1, A2, and A3); Figure substation (Ai) Pi (mm)
c. (km )2
(mm)
 Calculate the average 1 30 0.42 15.2 6.38
precipitation for entire 2 17 0.23 10 2.30
catchment from the formula:  ( Ai Pi ) 3 25 0.35 14 4.90
ave 
where Pi is the rainfallPdepth  atAi
Σ 72 1 39 Σ(AiPi) = 13.58 mm11
each location.
 Intensity-duration-frequency analysis

Definitions - Wilson
Intensity: measure of the quantity of rain falling in a
given time (mm/hour). The shorter the time rain falls,
the greater the intensity the storm. See Table 2.4 for
world’s greatest r.f.s.
Duration: length of time over which rain falls.
Frequency: expectation that a given depth of precipitation
will fall in a given time.
The relationship of these three is an important one. In
many design problems related to watersheds such as
runoff disposal, road construction, culvert design, it is
necessary to know the rainfall intensities of different
durations and different return periods (Chapter 6)
The curve that shows the inter-dependency between i
(mm/hr), D (duration/time in min/hours) and frequency
F(year) is called IDF curve.

230
220 5-yr
210
10-yr
200
190 20-yr
180 50-yr
170
160
Rainfall intensity (mm/hr)

150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Time (min)
 Depth area duration analysis

Precipitation over an area is variable, with greater depths

observed at the centre and reduces outward
This relationship is depicted in figure 2.10 p 23 and
described by Holland for areas up to 10 km2 in storms lasting
between 2 and 120 mins Wilson p19

 Where
 P= average rain depth over the area,
 P = point depth measured at the centre of the area,
 A=total area in km2
 t*= an inverse gamma function of storm time obtained from the correlation
in Figure 2.11
 Preparation of rainfall data
Before using rainfall data, it is necessary to check the
data for continuity and consistency
Missing data (section 2.8.6 p24 Wilson)
Record errors
 Missing Precipitation Data
Continuous precipitation records at gauging stations are
not always available
Recording devices may malfunction, a person may fail to
record precipitation at a non-recording gauge
The values of missing data may need to be estimated
There are basically two conditions for which estimates of
daily precipitation depths may be obtained
Both are premised on average annual precipitation data
from at least 3 adjacent stations
The stations must be located close to the station with
missing data and spaced out evenly around it
1. If the average annual precipitation at each of the
adjacent stations varies from the average annual
precipitation of the station with the missing data by
less than 10%, then a simple average is determined:

Where Pa , Pb and Pc are the daily precipitation data

from the adjacent stations and
Px is the estimated daily precipitation at the station
with missing data.
If the average annual precipitation at each of the
adjacent stations varies from the average annual
precipitation of the station with the missing data by
more than 10% , then a normal ratio method is used
In this method, the depths at each of the adjacent
stations are weighted by the ratio of the average annual
precipitation at the missing station and the average
precipitation at each of the stations.
The daily average value is then derived by the simple
arithmetic average technique
Where Pa, Pb and Pc are the daily precipitation data from the adjacent
stations and
Px is the estimated daily precipitation at the station with missing data
Nx is the average annual precipitation from the station with the missing
data
Ni are the average annual precipitation value from the adjacent stations

Reference: Wanielista
Alternatively, a graphical solution may be found where the
daily/monthly precipitation values (X- axis) are plotted
against the annual average values (Y -axis) at the respective
stations.

Nx
precipitation
Annual

Px (Missing data)

Daily/monthly
precipitation
 Consistency-Double mass curve
 Hydrologic data usually exhibits trends. Discernible changes
in hydrologic data are usually due to meteorological
conditions. Sometimes, however, changes in trend occur as a
result of gauging variations, e.g. obstructions to the gauging
devices
 The point in the data set where /when change in hydrologic
regime / trend/ consistency occurs, can be evaluated by
plotting and analysing a double mass curve for the
particular data set
 How? Assuming that it is the data of station X that is being
checked for inconsistency
 A group of 5 to 10 surrounding stations in the vicinity of the
problem station X is selected
 The rainfall data of station X and the average data of the
neighbouring stations are then arranged in (i) chronological
order (from old to recent)or (ii) reverse chronological order
(from recent to old record) . See Question 2.7 Table on p40.
 Compute cumulative values of the precipitation at station X
(∑Px) as well as the cumulative of the average values of
surrounding stations (∑Pavg) starting from the earliest / latest
record.
 Plot the (∑Px) on X-axis against (∑Pavg) on Y-axis as shown
below
 Double Mass Curve Analysis

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accumulated annual rainfall of X stn in 10^3 cm

4.5

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Accumulated annual rainfall of neigbouring stns in 10^3 cm
 A decided break in the slope of the resulting plot is observed
that indicates a change in precipitation regime of station X,
i.e inconsistency.
 If the trend of the early record is extended (shown by the
broken line) , it will deviate from the data set. This point
where this deviation occurs is the point where the change
occurred.
 The time of change may be estimated by referring to the
data set
 How to determine correct values for station X
 Using the graphical method, one can read off the
correct cumulative values for station X from the
extended trend line by using the cumulative
neighbouring station values as reference.
 The differences between the successive cumulative
values from the point where the change occurred
onwards are the correct observations that should
have been made.
 Alternatively , a correction factor (ratio of slopes)
may be applied to the original recorded precipitation
at time period t1 at station X to obtain the corrected
precipitation ( see next figure)
 Double Mass Curve Analysis

4.5
accumulated annual rainfall of X stn in 10^3 cm

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Accumulated annual rainfall of neigbouring stns in 10^3 cm
 Double Mass Curve Analysis
a c c u m u la ted a n n ua l r ain fall o f X s tn in 1 0 ^ 3 c m
5
Mc c
4.5

4
Ma a
3.5 Px
a
3

2.5
c
Pcx
2

1.5

0.5
t1
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Accumulated annual rainfall of neigbouring stns in 10^3 cm

Pcx – corrected precipitation at any time period t1 at stationX

Mc
Pcx  Px Px – Original recorded precp. at time period t1 at station X
Ma Mc – corrected slope of the double mass curve
Ma – original slope of the mass curve