How to Estimate the Amount of Rainfall in Your Area Rainwater collected from rooftops is a high-quality supply of water that may be used for cleaning, toilet flushing, and even safe consumption if care are taken. Knowing how much water you can harvest might impact the amount and size of water tanks you buy when buying rainwater storage tanks.
This is the first of a two-part series that will show you how much rainwater you can collect. We reviewed your capture area and how much rainfall you may gather in the last post. This article explains how to find out how much rain has fallen in your location.
Estimating Your Annual Rainfall
To begin, you must first determine how much precipitation falls from the sky in your location. You probably don’t have measuring cups outside and haven’t kept track of rainfall patterns all year. Thankfully, the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia gathers regional data on this. As a result, you may get a reasonable estimate of how much rain will fall on your property throughout each season and month.. All you need to do is visit the rainfall section on BoM’s website:
Once there, follow these steps:
- Select your “Period”. You can select any month of the year, season or annual rainfall.
- Select an “Area” (state).
- What follows is a map providing an average rainfall (millimetres) that has fallen over a standard 30-year period across your state. The colours indicate the how much rain falls in each region.
Such should be adequate for providing you with a good estimate of rainfall in your area.
Accurate Daily Rainfall Totals
While a rough estimate should be enough for most people, if you would like more precise rainfall data then you can also discover the daily rainfall totals in your area for the last year on BoM’s website.
Select your “Area” (state) and then “Rainfall Totals” for the map once again. You may check the rainfall for each month of the preceding year by selecting “1 month” and then clicking the “Earlier” button. Because weather varies year to year, this will give you a more realistic picture of recent rainfall in your location.
Rain Differs Month-to-Month Per Season
It’s crucial to remember that rain does not fall in a predictable pattern throughout the year. As a result, you should pay attention to how much rain falls during each month and season on BoM’s website. Summer is often the rainiest season in Australia, since the heat evaporates more water, which subsequently condenses and generates precipitation.
For the most part, this suggests that the rainiest months will be December through February the following year. The driest season is usually winter. If you want to collect rain, you should strive to get everything in place before the summer months arrive.
Furthermore, rain does not fall uniformly throughout the course of a month. Expect periods of no rain, followed by the most of the monthly rain falling during a few days. This implies that during the year, your rainwater tank may be empty, but when it rains, it will quickly fill with water. It will overflow if you don’t have enough storage space.
If you find this depressing, you may want to consider investing in a larger tank, or perhaps numerous tanks, to reduce rainwater waste. Having your above-ground rainwater storage, feeding the overflow into a second tank or an underground tank, and then diverting any excess water into the stormwater system, is a great option.
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