CoCoRaHS - "Volunteers working together to measure precipitation across the nation."

November 19, 2009 8:47 PM

CoCoRaHS - "Volunteers working together to measure precipitation across the nation." Sponsored by NWS, NOAA, and more... Volunteers Wanted (pdf)
posted by MrBCID (8 comments total)

I see Minnesota finally joined the Union, despite the objections of Michele Bachmann.

But seriously, I've seen this program mentioned on the NWS site multiple times, it, like many of the public participation projects the NWS is involved in, seems like a great idea.

Skywarn - you too can be a storm spotter (NWS spotter's guides - so you don't die)

or

a river ice spotter

Stormready - make your business, school, or organization storm ready, or maybe tsunami ready.

Hours of fun can be had with the NWS.
posted by IvoShandor at 2:58 AM on November 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Very useful project, I wish this were underway in more areas of the world rather than satellite TRIMM data. It's always poor-resolution.

I should get my dad in on this seeing as whenever we talk on the phone it's mostly about the weather. He gets a pass though, as he is a farmer, after all. I do have very fond memories of storm-watching as mentioned by IvorShandor. Virtually everyone on our small town was trained as one since tornadoes were so common, which I always thought was amusing; no one was on the town to warn about a tornado because most of us were out watching for them.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 3:29 AM on November 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

no one was on the town to warn about a tornado because most of us were out watching for them.

This seems to be normal in the Midwest, trained spotter or not. Tornadoes are like ambulances, everyone watches them go by.
posted by IvoShandor at 4:05 AM on November 20, 2009

Someone I knew lived just outside Santa Cruz, near the Mystery Spot, where houses are on crests, separated by redwood ravines. He kept very accurate temperature and rain gauge data, as did a bunch of his neighbors. The long term differences even from house to house showed surprisingly consistent and varied micro climates.
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:51 AM on November 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is great. I've been meaning to get a rain guage for the garden anyway. Now I'm station ME-CM-30. :-)
posted by rusty at 6:56 AM on November 20, 2009

"Volunteers working together to measure precipitation across the nation."

This sounds like an unwritten Beck song.
posted by The Whelk at 7:18 AM on November 20, 2009

NWS Boulder has been producing some nifty maps with this data so far this snow season. For example, here's the map showing snow totals for our most recent storm (at the moment, this past weekend). Unfortunately, it looks as if they're not archiving previous maps, so I can't provide a link to the big storm we saw at the end of October.

It's pretty useful, as snowfall totals tend to vary greatly across Denver and surrounding areas with big storms. For example, DIA (the official reporting site for Denver) only received 15.3" of snow from the October storm. Here in Littleton, about 25 miles away, I received 28". Head a little ways into foothills just west of town, and the amounts climb into the 30-50" range. This sort of wide distribution is fairly normal. Having the extra data points available helps present a better picture of each storm's impact.
posted by jal0021 at 7:46 AM on November 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

Why aren't they tapping the Wunderground network? There are thousands upon thousands of people already providing this information.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:03 AM on November 20, 2009