How do weather people/scientists know how much it has rained

Question

For example recently Hong Kong has had 6 inches of rain in an hour. But how do they measure this as the level of water is not equal in all areas?

In: 5

Answer 1

There are phydical measuring stations. Official government ones in the us are located at airports, unofficial sources like weather underground use volunteer stations get data from stations located more broadly in cities. Weather radar can also show amounts of precipitation in the air so they can see how much water is falling over larger areas.

Commercial weather providers also aggregate their own stations and official government sources to provide information to their subscribers.