Six Years Result of Rainfall Rate Measurement at Covenant University, Southwest, Nigeria

Abstract

The scattering and absorption of communication signal propagated through the troposphere by rainfall is a major cause for attenuation. For a proper mitigation of this impairment, an adequate understanding of rain rate must be carried out. Hence a 6-years of one-minute rain rate and four years measurement at Ota, Southwest, Nigeria (6° 42N, 3° 14E), using a wireless Davis Vantage Pro2 Weather Station is presented. The rainfall rate data span from April 2012 to December 2015 has been analysed. One-minute rainfall rate is required for the prediction and modelling of rain attenuation at microwave frequencies for a region like the Nigeria at various percentage of time. International Telecommunication Union - Recommendation (ITU-R) divided the world into rainfall zones of which Nigeria falls into the P zone. However, the maximum rainfall rate at 0.01% of time in the P zone is 145 mm/hr of which Ota is overestimated. The measured yearly averaged maximum one-minute rainfall rate for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 are 157.7 mm/h, 148.0 mm/h, 241.2 mm/h, 157.3 mm/h, 140.6 mm/h and 250.8 mm/h respectively.