How much water is there in an inch of rain?

Question

How much water is there in an inch of rain?

Answer 1

it contains an inch of rain water

sorry.. why i said is - -

its may not possible to tell exact quantity of water. bcoz it contains too much other things dissolved / mixed with it like dust, acids etc which varies with time and place

Answer 2

It surprices me, (from previous answers),  to see how distant from  science many americans are.

When metereologist tell us we had an inch of rain, they are talking about volumes of water by the square foot. but scientist in general, even in America, use the metric sistem, since it is easier to understand, let me try to explain.

The standard way of measuring rainfall or snowfall is the standard rain gauge, which can be found in 4-inch/100 mm plastic and 8-inch/200 mm  The inner cylinder is filled by 25 mm/1 inch of rain, with overflow flowing into the outer cylinder. Plastic gages will have markings on the inner cylinder down to 0.25 mm/0.01" resolution, which metal gages will require use of a stick designed with the appropriate 0.25 mm/0.01" markings. After the inner cylinder is filled, the amount inside it is discarded, then filled with the remaining rainfall in the outer cylinder until all the fluid in the outer cylinder is gone, adding to the overall total until the outer cylinder is empty. These gages are winterized by removing the funnel and inner cylinder and allowing the snow/freezing rain to collect inside the outer cylinder. Once the snowfall/ice is finished accumulating, or as you approach 300 mm/12", one can either bring it inside to melt, or use luke warm water to fill the inner cylinder with in order to melt the frozen precipitation in the outer cylinder, keeping track of the warm fluid added, which is subsequently subtracted from the overall total once all the ice/snow is melted.

To make things easier, if americans could accept the metric system, one inch of rain means EXACTLY 25.4 liters  per square meter, or 144 cubic inches per square foot=

.62344444 of a gallon.

Esteban      [e-mail]

Answer 3

1 inch = 2,54 cm = 25,4 mm

about volume of water it really depends on how wide it is..

example if the width of water saving is about 1 square meter then the amount of water is:

25,4 mm x 10^6 mm2 = 2,54E7 mm3

= 25,4 liter of water..

@ estemenm yeah.. you're right.. sorry..i was mistyping.. my previous answer is 25,4 ml.. the correct one is 25,4 l.

Answer 4

Maybe I misunderstand the question but it seems to me that everyone missed something: The time factor.

In meteorology, one talks about an inch or rain over a period of time; often 24 hours. The actual size of the measuring instrument and the total volume of the recovered rain water is irrelevant. If one inch of water felt during the past 24 hours, then it is an inch of water everywhere.

Does this make sense?

Answer 5

around 20 ml

Answer 6

if you mean a cubic inch of rain...there is about 16.39 ml of water