Andrews Forest precipitation has been measured continuously using various rain gage types since 1951. Most of these rain gages are standard (non-recording) gages with 7.5 or 8 inch orifices or large capacity storage gages intended for sites with limited access collected irregularly over longer intervals. Recording rain gages have also been established to collect higher temporal resolutions (e.g., 5 minute or 15 minute) and also used as a means of parsing (“prorating”) these periodic interval measurements from these standard and storage gages into daily totals. This data set includes an inventory of all rain gages that have operated within the Andrews as well as one site in the nearby Wildcat RNA and one in the town of Blue River. The inventory includes information regarding the date range of operation, gage location, type of gage, the rain network within which it was established, general availability of data and descriptive notes. A second table includes all of the raw measurement data for these non-recording gages over every interval where data were taken, and additionally includes the corresponding recording gage and its measurement total used to prorate data into a daily record. A third table includes the prorated daily data for all of these standard and storage gages as well as the true daily totals for two recording rain gages. A fourth table includes high temporal resolution for one early recording gage at Forks and the Mack Creek recording gage. Note that while precipitation data associated with the 6 benchmark stations are included in this rain gage inventory (Entity 1), the daily and high temporal resolution data for these sites are available through a separate meteorological data set, database code MS001.
Adam M Kennedy, Alfred B. Levno, Christopher Daly, Craig Creel, Donald L. Henshaw, Greg Downing, Greg M Cohn, Jack S. Rothacher, Mark D Schulze, Stephanie A Schmidt
Throughout the Andrews history various rain networks have been established to capture precipitation within the Andrews Forest. A network of rain gages was established in the 1950s to capture rainfall patterns at lower elevations, particularly watersheds 1, 2, and 3, with most gages terminated by 1973. Another, broader network was established in the late 1970s and measured into the 1990s to capture precipitation where gaps in the diverse topography were present. A third network was established in the 1990s as part of the establishment of benchmark meteorological stations developed to better capture meteorological patterns within the Andrews. Two storage gages along the 1507 road were included to capture this high-catch southern ridge. The diverse topography within the Andrews Forest has necessitated sampling precipitation across the Andrews at many different sites to understand precipitation patterns, over 60 sites since 1951.