Physics Help Forum Volume of water on a city

 Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics Physics Help Forum

 Sep 4th 2008, 04:04 PM #1 Junior Member   Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 10 Volume of water on a city I couldn't manage to figure this one out on my own. A heavy rainstorm dumps 1.0cm of rain on a city 9km wide and 4km long in a 2hr period. How many metric tons ( 1 metric ton = 10^3kg) of water fell on the city? (1cm^3 of water has a mass of 1g = 10^-3kg.) Edit: Turns out I had the right answer but left too many sig figs which was why I was getting it wrong Last edited by symstar; Sep 4th 2008 at 07:37 PM.
Sep 5th 2008, 09:47 AM   #2

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 Originally Posted by symstar I couldn't manage to figure this one out on my own. A heavy rainstorm dumps 1.0cm of rain on a city 9km wide and 4km long in a 2hr period. How many metric tons ( 1 metric ton = 10^3kg) of water fell on the city? (1cm^3 of water has a mass of 1g = 10^-3kg.) Edit: Turns out I had the right answer but left too many sig figs which was why I was getting it wrong
The volume of water can be represented by a rectangular solid 1 cm x 9 km x 4 km. So you can use $\displaystyle m = \rho V$, where $\displaystyle \rho$ is the density of water, to determine the mass of the water that fell on the city, then convert that to metric tons. I'm getting 360000 metric tons.

-Dan
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