April 23, 2020, by Kristina Tirman

Rainy days are here again! 

Many people use all kinds of rain gauges – in their gardens, on their decks, outside their kitchen window – to keep track of rainfall.  The Science Center has a new type of rain gauge called a “Tipping Bucket”.   

A Tipping Bucket is an apparatus quite a bit more complicated than the name implies. The outside of a Tipping Bucket may give the impression of just a bucket but the inside tells a different story. 

Within the bucket itself, a small tipping “seesaw” fills, one side at a time, until exactly 1/100 of an inch is collected.  The seesaw then tips that amount into the receiving funnel.  This triggers an electronic time stamp.  The bucket does not actually fill or measure amount of rain but we can tell how much rain has accumulated over time by knowing how often 1/100 of an inch of rain is recorded

Download the “Tipping Bucket Worksheet” below to become a geologist and analyze the data collected from a tipping bucket on Mt. Verstovia!

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