Quality control of rain data used for urban runoff systems

Abstract

When improving software packages such as MOUSE and SAMBA for designing sewers and storage basins, and simulating overflows and flooding the quality of the input becomes important The essential input to these modelling tools are the historical rain series. This paper presente the procedures for collection and quality control of rain data from a network of tipping bucket rain gauges in Denmark carried out by the Danish Meteorological Institute. During rain, the RIMCO gauge counts the number of tips (each of 0.2 mm of precipitation) every minute. The quality control of the rain data includes an automatic and a manual bit marking, where the automatic control basically is pointing out minutes with extreme intensities. In the manual control, the maximum intensities as well as the daily totals of precipitation are inspected, using weather charts, intensity plots and precipitation sums of nearby Hellmann gauges. Shortcomings and improvements of the quality control are discussed. Although, it is possible to improve the efficiency of the quality control, long term corrections will always be necessary.