Rain File

Question

I have 20 min rainfall data in a format shown in the attached document. 
 There's 13 rainfall gage station but some time is missing when there's no data recorded. 
 Can someone tell me how to manage this format and create a rain file for each gage?

Jesse Dringoli · Accepted Answer

If you need to create a rain file for use with a long term continuous simulation (LTCS) using the EPASWMM runoff method in SewerGEMS, check the Help topic called "Long Term Continuous Simulations (LTCS) in SewerGEMS /CivilStorm Using the SWMM Engine". This shows an example of the formats supported, including a user defined format. You'll need to convert your PDF into a plain text file following one of the supported formats. Excerpt from the Help:

And a generic SWMM specific format which works as follows where each line of the file contains the station ID, year, month, day, hour, minute, and non-zero precipitation reading, all separated by one or more spaces.

STA01 2004 6 12 00 00 0.12 
STA01 2004 6 12 01 00 0.04 
STA01 2004 6 22 16 00 0.07 
 
 If you'd like to model a single event using the Unit Hydrograph method, create a time-depth event under Components > Storm Data. You can create it as an Incremental event with a 20 minute increment, entering the corresponding depths from the PDF for each 20 minute interval.

Scott Kampa · Answer

Hello, 
 If the gauge data is all from one event, you could take a reasonable average of the data and create a Time-Depth curve for use in SewerGEMS. There is some general information found in the SewerGEMS Help documentation under the topic "Rainfall Tables." 
 Other general information on rainfall data can be found under the "Rainfall Curves" section. 
 Please let us know if you have any additional questions. 
 Regards, 
 Scott