hi I'm George Wetzel the observational program leader at the National Weather Service forecast office in Atlanta Georgia today we're going to be talking about the eight inch standard rain gauge this is one of the most established pieces of weather equipment in the National Weather Service called an eight inch standard rain gauge eight inches because it's measured eight inches across the top rain that'll fall will actually go into the inside of the gauges will cover but this gauge itself is actually used every morning and six hours every day here at the Weather Service office but as a cooperative weather observer you'll be measuring rainfall 24 hours a day this is the funnel portion of the aided standard rain gauge now it is called the funnel because it actually does funnel the water within it this is 8 into the cross but as it comes into there it graduates down into an inside to inside of the 82 rain gauge we have this tube this actually will collect the rain that comes through the funnel inside of the tube it'll actually hold about two inches of rainfall and even if it does start overflowing you'll actually have this outside can to collect it now we're going to talk about a measuring stick that we use in the 8 inch rain gauge excuse me while I whip this out on this stick itself you'll notice that there is an actual graduated scale on here it goes down to the nearest hundredth of an inch and then it also graduates up to the nearest tenth of an inch inside of the tube as your room called it actually will record up to two inches of rainfall as you can tell it's a nice sunny day out but we've decided to do today is we're actually going to simulate some rainfall so we have filled the inside tube with an unknown amount of liquid and what we're going to do now is start showing you how to take an actual measurement if you were doing this for the National Weather Service and here's how we'll do the measurement you'll actually remove the funnel so you can make sure that you've actually got the funnel in place and the tube is okay and it's actually located on a very flat surface what should you then you'll take your Rosewood green stick you'll place it inside of the gauge inside the tube let it sit there for a second and then on rosewood what happens is when you remove it you'll see that the water actually will leave a mark on it and right there at about one point two nine maybe one point two nine and a half inches that's how much rainfall is falling well now that we've taken a measurement in a normal manner what you would notice is that there's this much water sitting inside of this inside - well what if distance I tube had actually started to overflow and what would happen is that you remember at the bottom of this funnel the water would actually start coming up and actually overflow into this can well what we would do is actually keep jumping this can back into this to remeasure that'll tell us how much rain has fallen and this entire can would actually take up to about 20 inches of rainfall now when you're done with your weather observations you'll take the tube make sure that you've got a good accurate reading just go ahead and dump it out not a problem it doesn't cause any issues around the rain gauge and then what you do to make sure that you do not have any more water actually cooling up at the base of the gauge and as you can see if you don't turn the tube over you're gonna leave some rainfall in there so then you replace the the tube into the green gauge you're all set for your next range thank you for coming to our YouTube channel if you enjoy the informational videos that we had here stay tuned we're gonna have some more and if you have any suggestions for us or would like to get more information on weather go to our website and weather.gov slash atlanta you're also welcome to comment below here in our comments section on our youtube channel