Product category:
Hydrometry, Environment and Floods
News Release from: OTT Hydrometry | Subject: Pluvio2
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 19 June 2008
OTT launches new precipitation
(rainfall) sensor
OTT Hydrometry is launching a new sensor, known as OTT Pluvio2, based on work by Sir Christopher Wren, for the accurate measurement of rainfall, snow and hail, after several years of development....
Commenting on the new technology, OTT Managing Director Simon Wills says, "The initial version of the Pluvio instrument was launched a few years ago It offered users much greater resolution and accuracy across a broader range of weather conditions in comparison with older techniques, but the new version provides even better performance at a significantly lower cost
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 5 Sep 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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Importantly, the Pluvio2 is able to record the precise moment at which precipitation takes place".
The instrument accuracy is not diminished by the intensity of precipitation - the measurement range extends from 0.1 to an impressive 30 mm/min.
This technology is also well suited to freezing conditions offering an accurate measurement range of -40 to +60C.
Further reading
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The OTT Hydrometry new 'DuoSens' two channel battery-powered datalogger is a small sized, cost-effective logger with all the functionality of larger and far more expensive predecessors
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The enhanced real-time data collection capabilities of the OTT Pluvio, providing both intensity and precipitation accumulation information, make the instrument an ideal tool in risk management for flood warnings and other weather related emergencies, particularly those involving extreme precipitation events.
It was Sir Christopher Wren who invented the first tipping bucket rain-gauge, because he could see a need for automatic measurements for the early weather forecasters: and with the benefit of many decades of instrument design, OTT believes that if Sir Christopher was alive today he would be rather surprised to learn that it has taken so long for a better technology emerge!.
The world's first recording rain-gauge, by Sir Christopher Wren, was based on a pair of tipping buckets on a pivot under a funnel that collected rain and tipped when full.
Each tip caused a hole to be punched in a paper tape so that rainfall could be recorded automatically without having to record daily volumes in a jar.
That was in 1662: astonishingly there are still thousands of rain-gauges all over the world operating quite effectively on that very same principle.
However, the method suffers from a number of drawbacks - it does not tell you exactly when the rain fell; it does not record snow or hail effectively; it does not work well in heavy rain and it needs regular maintenance and recalibration.
OTT Hydrometry finally developed a better technology - it only took 344 years of R+D effort - that resolved these problems a few years ago, but initially the technology was expensive, although they have sold several thousand of them (the OTT Pluvio).
However, the new version, imaginatively christened 'OTT Pluvio2' is less expensive and even more accurate than its predecessor.
(Apologies, Sir Christopher!).
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