Research has shown that a conventionally shaped rain gauge interferes with the airflow around it and that the flow accelerates. This causes turbulence to increase over the top of the funnel and reduces the amount of precipitation caught by the rain gauge. It has been shown in studies that the effect of wind on a precipitation measurement can introduce a significant error, ranging from -5% to -80%. In most cases this is ignored, but it may be corrected arithmetically or overcome physically by designing the body of the rain gauge to reduce drag and turbulence, which is idea behind the aerodynamically shaped ARG100 and SBS500.
We now offer these two popular tipping bucket rain gauges, the ARG100 and SBS500, manufactured by EML in the UK who has over 25 years of experience in the Hydro-Meteorology industry and is the main supplier of precipitation gauges to the UK Met Office.