Precipitation

PRECIPITATON

Hydrological Cycle WHAT? 1. Product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from the atmosphere under gravity in either liquid or solid form . WHEN? WHERE? WHY? HOW? 2. It results from the condensation of moisture in the atmosphere due to the cooling of a parcel of air. DIFFERENT FORMS OF PRECIPITATION o o o o o

Drizzle Rain Snow Sleet Hail

1.) DRIZZLE 3. light rain falling in very fine drops.

2.) RAIN 4. Water vapor condensed from the atmosphere that falls visibly in separate drops.

3.) SNOW 5. atmospheric water vapor frozen into ice crystals and falling in light white flakes or lying on the ground as a white layer.

4.) SLEET 6. is a mixture of rain and snow. A form of winter precipitation consisting of small, translucent balls of ice.

5.) HAIL 7. occurs during severe weather such as thunderstorms when dust or particles in the air collide with cold water.

TYPES OF PRECIPITATION BY ORIGIN

CONCLUSION: »

Precipitation is important because it helps maintain the atmospheric balance. Without precipitation, all of the land on the planet would be desert. Precipitation helps farmers grow crops and provides a fresh water supply for us to drink.

HOW TO MEASURE PRECIPITATION? Measuring precipitation covers rain, hail, snow, rime, hoar frost and fog, and is traditionally measured using various types of rain gages such as the non-recording cylindrical container type (standard rain gauge) or the recording weighing type, float type and tipping-bucket type. One of the critical components of the Earth’s hydrological cycle is precipitation. Rainfall is essential for providing the fresh water that sustains life. Some say the first rain gauge was invented more than 2,000 years ago when rulers of the Choson Dynasty (now Korea) decreed that all villages were to engage in measuring precipitation. The rainfall data was then incorporated into a formula to determine the potential harvest of each farm.

Cylindrical Container Rain Gauge - the simplest and most widely used rain gauges simply consist of a large cylinder, a funnel and a plastic measuring tube. As rain falls to the ground, it is collected by the funnel and travels to the plastic measuring tube.

Tipping-Bucket Gauge - traditional tool used for weather station applications where the rain is channelled through the funnel to the one of the tiny buckets, or catchments.

Weighing Gauge - a weighing rain gauge consists of cylinder that is placed upon an electronic scale. As water enters the cylinder, the weight increases and provides an indirect measure of rainfall.

Float Gauge - a class of rain gauge in which the level of the collected rainwater is measured by the position of a float resting on the surface of the water. This instrument is frequently used as a recording rain gauge by connecting the float through a linkage to a pen that records on a clockdriven chart.

Weather Radar A weather radar is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, estimate its type (rain, snow, hail, etc.), and forecast its future position and intensity. Weather radars are mostly doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to intensity of the precipitation. Both types of data can be analyzed to determine the structure of storms and their potential to cause severe weather.

Weather Satellite A weather satellite is a type of satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. These meteorological satellites, however, see more than clouds and cloud systems. City lights, fires, effects of pollution, auroras, sand and dust storms, snow cover, ice mapping, boundaries of ocean currents, energy flows, etc., are other types of environmental information collected using weather satellites. Visible-light images from weather satellites during local daylight hours are easy to interpret even by the average person; clouds, cloud systems such as fronts and tropical storms, lakes, forests, mountains, snow ice, fires, and pollution such as smoke, smog, dust and haze are readily apparent. Even wind can be determined by cloud patterns, alignments and movement from successive photos. Many satellite services have two types of satellite images: infrared and visible. Visible images are just like those that a normal video camera (black and white) would see looking down at the earth – the brightest clouds are usually the thicker ones low down in the atmosphere and the duller clouds are the thin ones such as cirrus. Infrared (IR) images convert the temperature of the cloud, or land or sea (whichever the satellite can see at each point) to a shade of grey. The warmest points are at the ground

and are black. The coolest points are high in the atmosphere (cirrus cloud) and are white. In between are shades of grey which become brighter as the cloud becomes colder (higher). The dull grey cloud which you see on the IR images is low to middle cloud. Sometimes the differences in temperature of the ground can also be seen as different shades of grey.

Here in the Philippines, we have two current existing satellites floating in the space, the Diwata 1 and Diwata 2.  Diwata 1 or PHL-Microsat-1. First Philippine microsatellite launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in March 23, 2016, and was deployed into orbit from the ISS in April 27, 2016. It is the first Philippine microsatellite and the first satellite built and designed by Filipinos.  Diwata 2 or Diwata-2B. Second Philippine microsatellite launched in October 29, 2018. It is the second satellite of the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite (PHLMicrosat) program after Diwata-1.

Manufacturers: Tohoku University, Hokkaido University, University of the Philippines, Department of Science and Technology

Diwata 1 and Diwata

WHAT IS CLOUD SEEDING? CLOUD SEEDING is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud. But what is weather modification? -sometimes referred to as weather control, is the general term for efforts to alter artificially the natural meteorological phenomena of the atmosphere.

An image of actual Cloud Seeding