CONVERSION OF POINT RAINFALL TO AREA RAINFALL
A single point precipitation measurement is quite often not representative of the volume of precipitation falling over a
given catchment area. The representative precipitation over a defined area is required in many engineering applications,
whereas the gaged observation pertains to the point precipitation.
A dense network of point measurements and/or radar estimates can provide a better representation of the true volume
over a given area. A network of precipitation measurement points can be converted to areal estimates using any of the
following techniques:
Arithmetic or Station Average Method
Thiessen Polygon Method
Isohyetal Method
