[time-nuts] Rain, Water, etc

[David Forbes]

At 7:58 PM -0800 3/6/06, Tom Van Baak wrote:
>>  of things. But there are places with more water in the air than
>>  Boston, as has been pointed out. I think Seattle may qualify from
>>  time to time.
>
>There are many ways to measure rainfall but the most
>basic statistic will surprise you: the average annual rainfall
>in Seattle is about 36 inches vs. Boston's 44 inches.
>
>/tvb

I suspect it's the number of rainy days per year that's so high 
there, rather than the rainfall per se. I do remember reading of a 
one-day rainfall in Houston that beat Tucson's annual average of 12 
inches.

All I know is that the submillimeter telescope I work on is very 
happy if there's less than 2 mm of water vapor in the atmosphere at 
the zenith. This value is measured with a tiny little automated 
telescope called a taumeter, which looks at the H2O vapor absorption 
line at 225 GHz at various elevation angles.
-- 

--David Forbes, Tucson, AZ
http://www.cathodecorner.com/