Even though snow measuring sticks are available, it is common practice for the SRG's measuring stick to be used where one tenth on the measuring stick equals one inch of snow. Can is to be melted and measured in the measuring tube to provide the 24 hour precipitation. The measuring tube and measuring stick are used to allow measurement of the water content of the snowfall to be measured to the nearest hundredth of an inch as required. Such differences are, in fact, typical. The slope of the Universal's shoulder can induce upward wind currents that may carry away some of the raindrops.
Larger errors occur with snowfall.
During very light rains in warm weather, water can accumulate in the tipping bucket slowly enough to allow losses from evaporation before the bucket is tipped. During intense rainfall, some error will result as water continues to pour into the already filled bucket during the tipping motion. This error has been reduced to about one-half this magnitude in newer types of tipping bucket gages. Whenever more than 0.10 inch of rainfall is measured in one minute, rainfall is added to the one-minute total to compensate for the tipping bucket lose during heavy rainfall.