Talk:Precipitation

Template:Weather-selected

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was don't move. —Nightstallion (?) 11:31, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposal  :	Precipitation → Precipitation
Rationale :	The majority of the links will be to the meteorological meaning of precipitation, not the relatively obscure chemistry reference.
Proposer :	Thiseye 00:08, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Survey and discussion

Please add  * Support  or  * Oppose  followed by a brief explanation, then sign your vote using "~~~~".

• Oppose. Jibbajabba 22:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Why change something that is not broken and is correct and works? Vegaswikian 02:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Because it's the more natural page to be displayed instead of a disambiguation page. 90% of the links to Precipitation are in reference to the meteorological term. Without this change, scores of links pointing to the disambiguation page need to be updated to the meteorological article.--Thiseye 03:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Using 'links in' is not always a good indicator. If editors do a good job, there will be no redirects. If someone cleans up links to the correct article it will not point to a redirect or dab article. Vegaswikian 06:00, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Modifying vote to Oppose and Move Precipitation (disambiguation) to Precipitation. Vegaswikian 06:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support --Wikimol 06:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree that the meteorological meaning is more predominant among the laity, but I don't think it's overwhelmingly so, not enough to warrant placing the meterological article at "Precipitation". Especially since both uses are "scholarly" topics found in traditional encyclopedias. Precipitation (disambiguation) should be moved back to "Precipitation", in my opinion. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:55, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose - the meteorological use of the term is similar to chemistry academics' use of the term. The present definition is much more general-case. - Richardcavell 05:26, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

I am beginning to wonder if these units could be better reported in metric units with a link to the Wiki conversion of units page. Are there no objections if I go ahead and make the change? --RolandG 10:37, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Metric all the way! Anyway, we do need some graphics here, I think that would illustrate things a lot clearer! Houshuang

In my opinion, it would be useful to discuss the processes by which precipitation forms (see Met Office: Clouds, although maybe some of this information is a bit technical for the general reader. TCrossland 18 Jul 2004.

The precipitation article is full of incorrect facts. Read Bad Meterology: Bad Clouds and revise this article.

I tried to improve at least the first part of this contribution. Still much to do. PSeibert 05 Jan 2006.

This is incorrect article. Needs to be revised. --Pflatau 00:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I am tagging this article for cleanup, since it seems to require both fact-checking and significant copyediting. motorneuron

Greatly edited How Precipitation Forms. Hope this helps. Disorganized 676 02:44, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Moved from precipitation

The amount, usually expressed in millimeters or inches of liquid water depth, of the water substance that has fallen at a given point over a specified period of time. As this is usually measured in a fixed rain gauge, small amounts of dew, frost, rime, etc., may be included in the total. The more common term rainfall is also used in this total sense to include not only amounts of rain, but also the water equivalents of frozen precipitation. For obvious reasons, precipitation is the preferred general term. [1]

Daniel Collins 19:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Measurement of ~

Recently MPF tagged this section. I linked to the article on rain gauges, maybe you can use the stuff there to fix this section. Bye, Shinobu 20:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

An attempt was made to change the point of view of the article and add metric versions. Since wikipedia mentions specifically not to grab information from one page for another without adding the relevant links to the original material, none of that information could be used, even if it was 100% correct. If anyone knows of similar networks to CoCoRAHS outside the United States, feel free to add the link. Thegreatdr 20:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite of Precipitation

The section was incomplete and need to be expanded, and I added a reference Dcwinds 19:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

METAR Codes

I'm going to go ahead and remove the wikilinks on the METAR code abbreviations. All of the abbreviations link to either disambig pages (all which contain METAR as a possible use) or redirect to the same page as the name. I don't see any compelling reason to keep them. If there is, let me know. Greg Back 14:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

This page is being a constant target for vandalism lately. We have a section that ends in a fragment now. I have no idea how to revert to a previous good version. Anyone who can, do so. Thegreatdr 22:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Failed GA

According to the criterias an article must have all its information sourced, preferably with intext references. This article does not comply with that. / Fred-Chess 15:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

We're down to six sections which still need refs. Obviously, the progress on this article has been slow inline reference-wise since its GA attempt over 2 years ago. Thegreatdr (talk) 07:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

A Question

Doesn't precipitation fall just about everywhere in the world? I think that either we need to put in precipitation patterns around the world, or just take out the "Rainfall patterns in the United States" section. Of course, to put in the rainfall patterns of the entire world would probably take another article. Just a thought. --SuperCow 02:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The Answer

Um, no. -- Hard Raspy Sci 03:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

But to discuss your statement...

Yeah, probably, the latter. -- Hard Raspy Sci 03:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate section names

There are two sections called "types of precipitation." One or both should have their names changed in order to avoid confusion. Perhaps keep section 1 as types of precipitation and modify section 3 to be entitled causes of precipitation. I'm not a meteorological expert, so I can't say for sure that "causes of precipitation" is a good title for section 3. -- Drooling Sheep 04:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Size and shape of a raindrop

I think this is important: http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadRain.html but i don't know how to add this information in an elegant way. Flo422 17:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

other worlds

I'm adding a few comments to the rain article about other worlds. While Titan's pretty obvious, I'm not sure that what's thought to be going on in Jupiter's atmosphere should be called "rain". It's definitely precipitation, though, and it should at least be mentioned that precipitation does not necessarily involve water. kwami (talk) 08:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

New snow content

Due to the recent improvement of the snow article, it became apparent that this article barely touched upon the topic. Added new sections concerning snowflake production and the formation of snow to help balance this article's content between liquid precipitation and snow. Thegreatdr (talk) 18:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Maths error?

One of the figures in the following paragraph appears to be wrong, or be measuring something different:

"Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres (121,000 cu mi) of water falls as precipitation each year; 398,000 cubic kilometres (95,000 cu mi) of it over the oceans.[4] Given the Earth's surface area, that means the globally-averaged annual precipitation is 1,050 millimetres (41 in).[5]"

Surface of the earth is around 510,072,000 km2.

So divide 505,000 (cubic km of water) by 510,072,000 km2 - you get about 0.00099km of water height (990mm, not 1050 mm).

Or, if 1050mm (.00105km) is the "correct" figure, the first total become 535,575.6 km3 of water (.00105*510072000) rather than 505,000.

(using the imperial figures - presumably less accurate - 121 000 cubic miles divided by 196 939 900 sq mi gives 0.0006144 miles (39 inches rather than 41 inches))

Riom (talk) 03:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll make the correction. The original figures for both came from the reference, but since it appears to be a simple math error, there should be no harm in correcting it. Thegreatdr (talk) 13:13, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Artificial control over precipitation, and disputes between Chinese councils

• Cities fall out over cloud

Chinese meteorologists are accusing each other of what could prove to be one of the defining crimes of the 21st century: rain theft. The use of cloud-seeding guns, rockets and planes to induce rainfall has created tensions between drought-plagued regions, which are competing to squeeze more drops out of the sky than their equally arid neighbours. With water resources of only 2,200 cubic metres a person a year - less than a quarter of the global average - China is one of the world's leading users of rain-making technology. The technique usually involves dropping dry ice or silver iodide on cumulus clouds to induce or accelerate precipitation above reservoirs and rivers. Planes are the most common method of delivery, but scientists have also experimented with anti-aircraft guns, rockets and weather balloons...The technique is now so widespread that it is reportedly sparking rows between neighbouring areas. "The practice has caused considerable controversy in recent days, with some saying that one area's success with rain has meant taking moisture meant for one place and giving it to another," China Daily reported yesterday. The paper cited the case of central Henan province, where five arid cities are racing each other to induce precipitation. When clouds passed over the area last Saturday, Pingdingshan enjoyed a downpour of more than 100mm, but Zhoukou had to make do with less than 30mm. Meteorological officials in Zhoukou accused their counterparts in Pingdingshan of intercepting and overusing clouds.

Regards, -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 06:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

This is already included in the article on cloud seeding which, however, could be more prominently linked here. Gabriel Kielland (talk) 05:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

"Dew" missing in precipitation kind listing

There is a sentence:

> The main forms of precipitation include rain, snow, ice pellets, and graupel

This list significantly omits the Dew, as it is also very important for the Green Life, despite it may not be that important by overall precipitation volume.

85.71.32.118 (talk) 21:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC) (P.A.S.)

That's because Dew is not a form of precipitation. It condenses directly out of the atmosphere onto objects. Precipitation, by definition, falls from the sky.Famartin (talk) 22:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The definition is at present "any condensation deposited", which is ambiguous and could include dew and rime. Gabriel Kielland (talk) 20:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Try an actual dictionary. Precipitation, by definition, is any substance that condenses out of another substance and subsequently is pulled down by gravity. Famartin (talk) 02:18, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Metric before standard, or vise versa?

On my last edit, I wondered if you should have the standard before the metric. Does that really matter? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerry Zhang (talk • contribs) 01:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The standard is metric (SI) before imperial units. There have been exceptions made for US-centered articles, since they use imperial more than SI. Thegreatdr (talk) 03:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Map

The animated Map (of longterm precipitation by month) is nice and all, but it's useless if the reader wants to compare regions of the world in one specific month. I don't know where such a thing would go in this article, but it would be nice if there were 12 separate maps somewhere, or at least 4 maps (one for each season). 63.87.189.17 (talk) 17:57, 16 September 2010 (UTC)