Comments on: Icicles and Watersheds Part 2: How much water flows off the top of two houses http://globe.gov/explore-science/scientists-blog/archived-posts/sciblog/2008/01/14/icicles-and-watersheds-part-2-how-much-water-flows-off-the-top-of-two-houses/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=icicles-and-watersheds-part-2-how-much-water-flows-off-the-top-of-two-houses Tue, 25 Mar 2014 04:27:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: peggy http://globe.gov/explore-science/scientists-blog/archived-posts/sciblog/2008/01/14/icicles-and-watersheds-part-2-how-much-water-flows-off-the-top-of-two-houses/comment-page-1/#comment-1910 peggy Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:38:19 +0000 http://www.globe.gov/fsl/scientistsblog/?p=85#comment-1910 The major effect of the pitch of the roof is affecting how much water falls on it. So a very shallow roof would have more rain on it for the same area.

Suppose you had two roofs with equal “footprints” so that they received the same amount of rain. In steady state the flow off the roofs would be equal.

But if you rolled a marble off the longer, steeper roof, it would certainly be going faster.

I suppose the key is that the roofs would have the same flow off of them for steady state, but not for an “impulse”.

]]> By: jga http://globe.gov/explore-science/scientists-blog/archived-posts/sciblog/2008/01/14/icicles-and-watersheds-part-2-how-much-water-flows-off-the-top-of-two-houses/comment-page-1/#comment-1891 jga Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:43:30 +0000 http://www.globe.gov/fsl/scientistsblog/?p=85#comment-1891 I’m just curious, wouldn’t the pitch of the roof also impact the rate at which the water runs off? For example, using the roof sheds in your Fig. 3 and assuming a constant height for the attic crawl space, say 2m, the angle of your roof would be much less than for the imaginary roof. As a result, I would expect the water to flow off it more slowly. This would also affect the icicles you mentioned in a prior blog. If your home has a shallow pitch compared to your neighbors, would not more of it be apt to freeze forming longer and wider icicles?

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