CSIRO floreat raingages

After talking with the folks at CSIRO Floreat (Perth), I took a stroll around campus. These are restricted sites, so I always recommend checking in with reception before visiting. These campuses though are usually a fascinating mix of green-spaces like the below...

next to rusty drums full of chemicals, windowless buildings labeled "Danger quarantine", experimental greenhouses and so on.

In a back lot I came across this little weather station. The wind direction vane looked like it had seen better days (the bent thing on the right) but the wind speed cups (the bowls on the left) where whirring away as the wind picked up. It then started spitting rain, coming down in horizontal sheets. I had to hide in a shelter for a dirt pile to keep dry. Soon after, the driveways started forming small streams.

On the other side of campus, my eyes just about fell out of my head when I came across this:

 I used to have something like this at my house in Portland. The inner ring fills up with rain pouring down the funnel. The black top comes off and the tube can be lifted out, read, emptied and put back in. If the rain gets very heavy, the water pours over into the outer ring. It was neat.


Sorry, I meant, "it was neat... times NINE!" There were nine gages at three different heights set up in a set of triangles.

In Portland I similarly had two gages next to eachother and would read both and compare them. It was surprising how different they could be, even just a couple feet apart.