PRECIPITATION
By
James Kushe
PRECIPITATION
• From the water cycle or water balance you will
notice that one of processes is the
precipitation.
• This lesson will concentrate of the
precipitation as part of the water balance
equation.
Areas of emphasis
Areas of emphasis in this chapter include:
• Precipitation
• Formation of precipitation
Time:
• 6 hours (4 hours of study: 2 hours of further
study)
Precipitation
• According to Musy and Higy (2011), “precipitation
is all meteoric water (water of direct atmospheric
origin) that falls on the Earth’s surface, whether in
liquid form (rain or drizzle), solid form (snow, ice
pellets, hail), or occult form (frost, dew,
hoarfrost).”
• Precipitation can be considered as the main
component of the hydrological cycle as it drives
the entire hydrologic cycle
• Generally all forms of moisture originating
from clouds and falling to the ground
constitute precipitation.
Formation of precipitation
The conditions for precipitation to take place
may be summarised step wise as follows;
• Supply of moisture
• Cooling to below point of condensation
• Condensation
• Growth of particles
Major Precipitation Weather Systems
• For precipitation to form, an air mass containing the
water vapour must be cooled adiabatically to
condense the vapour into water droplets.
• The large-scale cooling needed for sufficient
amounts of precipitation is achieved by lifting the air.
• Lifting can occur in three main ways that also classify
the type of precipitation.
Cyclonic precipitation
• Results from the lifting of air converging into a low –
pressure area or cyclone
• A cyclone is defined as an area of low pressure with
circulation of air around it, usually inward, towards
the centre
Convection precipitation
• Results from the lifting or upward movement of air that is
warmer and lighter than its colder denser surroundings
• Occur in the tropics and is brought about by heating of
the air at the interface with the ground.
• On a hot day the ground surface becomes heated, as
does the air in contact with it.
• This causes the air to rise, expand and cool dynamically,
causing condensation and precipitation.
• Convective precipitation may be in the form of light
showers or storms of extremely high intensity but of
short duration, an example being thunderstorms
Orographic precipitation
• occurs when air flows up and over a
topographic feature such as a mountain
barrier
• precipitation is heavier on windward slopes,
with rain shadows on leeward slopes.
Frontal rainfall
• Frontal precipitation on the other hand is the
result of lifting of lighter warm moist air mass
over denser cold air mass
Types of precipitation
• Drizzle
• Rain
• Snow
• Hail
• Glaze or freezing rain
Precipitation/ Rainfall measurement
• Precipitation is measured by an instrument
called a raingauge
Types of rain gauges:
• There are two types of rain gauges used to
measure precipitation.
– non – recording gauge
– recording rain gauge
Non-recording gauge: Standard rain gauge
Recording gauge
Tipping-bucket
Weighing-bucket
Float type
Parameters for defining rainfall
• Intensity or rate of precipitation i.e. the depth of
water per unit of time in m/s, mm/minute.
• Duration of precipitation in seconds, minutes or
hours.
• Depth of precipitation expressed as the thickness of
a water layer on the surface in mm.
• Area i.e. the geographic extent of the rainfall in km 2
or m2.
• Frequency of occurrence usually expressed by the
‘return period’ e.g. once in ten years.
Estimating Areal Rainfall
• Arithmetic mean
• Thiessen polygons
• Isohyets method
• Inverse Distance Method
Summary
• In this you have learnt the definition of precipitation,
types if lifting mechanism and measurement of
rainfall.
• The are question at the end of this section in the
module please attempt them.
• In the next lesson you will learn about interception
• I will see you in the next lesson
