Friday 1 August 2014

End of rainy season


The flood that we witnessed on July 9th turned out to be the largest flood of the rainy season this year. The hydrograph above shows that flood stage reached about 1m on the first peak, but then surged up to nearly 1.6m on the evening of July 9th. On that day 114mm (max. 20.5mm/h) of rain fell at Miomote, while 171mm (max. 26.5mm/h) fell at Takane Amedas station. The flood peak is very sharp and short-lived, with flood stage only remaining above 1m for about 3 hours.


Today we visited the field in typical mid-summer hot and humid conditions, and we took the opportunity to replace the base for the rain gauge located in the tributary basin. We encountered problems with rusty bolts for the rain gauge in the paddy field location and had to bring this one back to the lab for fixing. Trees are starting to encroach on both locations and are likely already having an influence on reducing the precipitation catch compared to a true open site.