GALOCE (China) - In the past winter, to measure the amount of snowfall, observers had to take the snow container into the house every hour. After the snow turns into water, measure it with a measuring cup, so the whole process can only rely on manual operation. However, nowadays, with the acceleration of the modernization of meteorological modernization, weighing precipitation sensors have basically replaced manual observations. It can automatically calculate snowfall based on weight, and can be set at automatic observation stations in various regions to closely monitor snowfall.

At present, China's meteorological department's observations of solid precipitation are mainly based on artificial observations, which have many shortcomings such as poor timeliness and insufficient space-time density, and cannot fully and continuously reflect the changes in the snow and ice process.

In the past, the commonly used rainfall observer was a tipping bucket rainfall sensor. This sensor is an instrument for automatically measuring precipitation. It mainly consists of a water receiver, a filter funnel, a tipping bucket, a reed switch and a base. The precipitation passes through the water receiver, and then flows into the dump bucket through a filter bucket. When a certain amount of rainwater flows into the dump bucket, the dump bucket turns over, emptying the bucket water, and the other bucket of the dump bucket starts to receive water again. The reed is converted into a pulse signal and transmitted to the acquisition system. The measuring range of the instrument is 0 to 4mm / min.

Although digital transmission is realized, in the low temperature environment of winter, the tipping bucket rain sensor melts slowly when it encounters solid precipitation or mixed precipitation such as snow, hail, sleet, which can not be monitored in time. Human intervention is required to complete the observation.

The new weighing precipitation sensor is a fully automatic, all-weather precipitation observation instrument suitable for solid, liquid and mixed precipitation measurement and precipitation intensity, which can provide more comprehensive and authoritative information and data support for meteorology.

Weighing precipitation sensor is designed based on the principle of load measurement technology. Through rapid and corresponding measurement of precipitation based on mass changes, it can either output a switch signal to the existing automatic weather station, or be connected to other acquisition systems as an intelligent sensor.

Specifically, the principle is to measure the precipitation by the rapid response of the load element to the mass change in the bucket. The weighing precipitation sensor is mainly composed of the water inlet, the shell, the inner tube, the load element and the processing unit, the base assembly, the windshield, etc. Parts composition.

At present, there are two main measurement technologies used by weighing precipitation sensors:

• Based on resistance strain measurement technology: The sensitive beam is deformed by external force to deform the resistance strain gage attached to the surface. After the resistance strain gauge is deformed, its resistance value will change, and this resistance will be changed by the corresponding measurement circuit. Converted into electrical signals to obtain the quality of precipitation.
• Vibrating wire measurement technology: In general, the weighing precipitation sensor can effectively measure the solid state precipitation, and can solve the problems of poor timeliness, insufficient density and incompleteness caused by traditional artificial observation of precipitation. Entering the existing automatic weather stations of the regional meteorological bureaus is in line with the development trend of intelligent weather sensors.