Charlotte/Mecklenburg Rainfall Network

Standard Pipe Mounted Raingage

Background

The first raingage of the current network was installed in 1989. By 1992, three gages were recording rainfall in Mecklenburg County. At that time, an effort was started to provide good areal coverage of the county, and since 2002, the network has consisted of 70 raingages. Landline telemetry was used in early gages for data retrieval, but all sites are now equipped with ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radios. All sites currently use tipping-bucket sensors to measure precipitation.

Objectives

• Develop and maintain a real-time network of raingages for the entire Mecklenburg County area
• Develop automated methods for interpreting data (rainfall totals, recurrence intervals, intensity duration frequency (IDF) analysis)
• Evaluate methods and develop and apply software to improve retrieval and dissemination of data to interested users

Approach

Locate, install, operate, and maintain raingages throughout the county to provide areal coverage of accurate rainfall data retrieved in real-time and disseminated quickly to appropriate users.

Research existing technologies and develop and implement new software and hardware to improve speed and efficiency.

Define data needs and develop computer programs to automatically retrieve and analyze data and elucidate presentation.