Precipitation amount and intensity measurements with the Ott Pluvio

The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) performs routine precipitation amount measurements at nearly all its automated weather stations and also on the meteorological sites of the Royal Dutch Air force. An electronic precipitation gauge that has been developed by KNMI performs these measurements automatically. The design of this sensor originates from 1991 and since then it has undergone no changes. The sensor is of the so-called float type and determines the precipitation intensity by the change of the water level in a reservoir as measured by a potentiometer per time interval. A more detailed description of the KNMI precipitation gauge is given in Wauben (2004)