# How do you measure rainfall?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-measure-rainfall/57816>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 13, 2001, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-measure-rainfall/57816 "2001-03-13T17:19:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2001, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-measure-rainfall/57816/1 "2001-03-13T17:19:14Z")

</div>

I just saw Cecil’s explanation how they measure snowfall…  
They pretty much just stick a ruler into the snow.  
But how do they measure rainfall?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Shiva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@Shiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shiva)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2001, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-measure-rainfall/57816/2 "2001-03-13T17:34:15Z")

</div>

Um… :rolleyes:

They stick a ruler in a can. It’s called a rain gauge.

[http://www.fi.edu/weather/todo/r-gauge.html](http://www.fi.edu/weather/todo/r-gauge.html)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-measure-rainfall/57816/3 "2001-03-14T06:01:47Z")

</div>

It **can** be a little more complicated than that. The official rain gauges have a funnel on top connected to a smaller graduated-cylinder-like measuring part. This lets them be much more precise in their measurements.

See: [http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wrngauge.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wrngauge.htm) . It’s striking how much those pictures look like “a ruler in a can” though. 🙂