Despite the ferocity of Hurricane Mitch’s 180 mph winds and torrential rain which hit Central America in Autumn 1998, a lone ELE rain gauge continued to function and provided invaluable data for UK weather researchers. The storm that killed an estimated 11,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage was unable to prevent the model DRG-52 unit from faithfully measuring and logging rainfall data throughout the 60 hour storm. The unit was installed in South Honduras as part of a project managed by the Honduras Forestry Development Corporation, and was located on the crest of a hill just over 100m above mean sea level.
In a paper on the hurricane’s effects, researchers from Chatham Maritime Natural Resources Institute and Oxford Brookes University stated that data from the ELE rain gauge provided a "unique insight into rainfall amounts and intensities" during the storm. Few if any other weather stations were believed to have survived the hurricane’s power.
The ELE DRG-52 rain gauge uses a robust, reliable tipping bucket mechanism which provides 0.2mm per tip capacity. Made from stainless steel and anodised aluminium, the DRG-52 is able to withstand extreme weather conditions and still provide dependable data. A magnetic reed switch pulses each time the bucket tips, providing a signal for a range of data logging devices.
Maximum annual rainfall in Honduras for the three years before Hurricane Mitch measured 3037mm. But in a period of just over four days, the ELE unit recorded 896mm, with 254mm falling in one six hour period of intense rain. The storm reached a low of 905 millibar, the fourth lowest recorded for an Atlantic hurricane in the last century and peaked at a sustained one minute surface wind average of 156 mph (180 km/h).
The data provided by the ELE rain gauge and the devastation caused threw doubts on the reliability of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale as a predictor of potential property and flood damage, according to the researchers. Hurricane Mitch reached 5 - the maximum rating on the scale - using the peak intensity of one minute’s sustained surface wind force. However rainfall intensity, which the scale ignores, plays a major role in storm damage through flooding and soil erosion.