Quantifying wind-induced undercatch in the precipitation measurements at Ukrainian weather stations

Abstract

Literature overview. Precipitation measurements include random and systematic errors. Systematic errors increase in the following order: evaporation loss, wetting loss, and wind-induced undercatch (World Meteorological Organization, 2008). The last one occurs because of the aerodynamic blockage under the precipitation gauge collector (Baghapour et al. 2017; Sevruk & Nespor, 1994). Field experiments have shown that wind-induced undercatch reaches 14% for rain and 40% for snow for the Tretyakov wind-shielded gauge (Goodison et al., 1998).

In Ukraine, precipitation records omit wind-induced undercatch correction.

This study aims to calculate true precipitation values at Ukrainian weather stations, evaluate existing methodologies for precipitation measurements correction, and create the digital archive of corrected precipitation values based on sub-daily observations.

Material and methods. We used four methods to quantify wind-related errors for the Tretyakov gauge with wind shield proposed by Golubev (Konovalov et al., 2000), Bryazgin (Aleksandrov et al., 2005), Norway meteorological institute (Forland et al., 1996), and Yang (Yang et al., 1995). Sub-daily records were requested from Central Geophysical Observatory named after Boris Sreznevsky covering 207 stations between 1976 and 2019; 187 stations had more than 20 years’ period.

Results. For the Tretyakov gauge, annual wind-induced undercatch ranges from 5 to 9.5%, depending on correction methodology. The highest bias is observed for the solid precipitation – from 17.7 to 27.4%. The precipitation loss increases along with annual wind speed at the weather station (correlation coefficient r = 0.89).

Conclusions. We suggest that Golubev’s and Yang’s methodologies estimate precipitation wind-induced undercatch more accurately at stations where blizzards are often observed, we recommended using the Golubev’s methodology because it takes into account “false” precipitations.

The precipitation loss equals 0.2–4% according to the Golubev’s method at covered weather stations and reaches 13–19% at the bare mountain regions or seashore. Solid precipitation is more sensitive to the influence of wind – snow loss averages 17.3% according to the Golubev methodology or 21% according to the Yang methodology, while rain loss – 2.6% or 6.7%, respectively.

The obtained database with corrected precipitation comprises sub-daily and daily records from 207 Ukrainian stations between 1976 and 2019. It could be used for hydrological and climatological research.