Quite a season to be a weather watcher

Back in early December L. and I took a class at Curtis Library in Brunswick on how to be a weather observer for CoCoRaHS - the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. It's a citizen science project with volunteers in all 50 states who measure precipitation (rain, hail and snow) in their backyards. CoCoRaHS is affiliated with the National Weather Service (a scientist from the Gray station led our training at the library), NOAA and Colorado State University.

The training explained the equipment we'd be using - a precipitation gauge and white snow board (not to be confused with the mountain sliding kind). Both are tools that ensure as much accuracy as possible at an affordable cost (about $25) when measuring rain and snow.

Our "winterized" gauge does not utilize the inner tube outdoors during snow season. We'll add that piece in a few weeks.

The snow board from CoCoRaHS along with a marker from Home Depot to ensure we remembered where the white snow board was.

When measuring rain in the gauge the trainer emphasized the importance of putting the decimal point in the right place. The gauge measures to the 1/100th of an inch and I have learned since December that I am not immune from making a mistake in my early morning haze. I once recorded 2.20" when really what the gauge had was .22" of precipitation.

So last week when we had that wild and windy rain storm, L. and I had to do a double-take on the amount of water we poured out of the rain gauge to measure.

4.89 inches of rain. Nope, no decimal point problem with our measurements that notable weather day.

Actually, this has been a very interesting winter to be a weather watcher. "Freaky", "disappointing" and "sad there's no snow" have been words used to described this winter at our house.

And it is one thing to say this winter's weather has been downright atypical but another to have the numbers to prove it.

Measuring snow turned out to be a bit more work than we anticipated to make our reports because it requires melting the snow by measuring hot water and pouring it in to the gauge and/or setting it in a bowl of hot water. Then, deducting that amount from the total to get the actual liquid snowfall measurement. The only (very, very small) upside to the lack of snow this winter for my crew was fewer than normal days of snow melting measurements.

L. is our family's primary weather watcher (it's her science project this year) but everyone pitches in to help out. And the truth is, we're all quite curious about the actual snowfall and/or rainfall in our own neck of the woods after a storm.


Anyone can become a volunteer with CoCoRaHS. It does take an initial investment of about $25 for the precipitation gauge as well as a good metal ruler and a commitment to do the reports. The organization requests volunteers submit them daily - precipitation to record or not - and we do our best to do that, but our focus has been on recording precipitation events/storms.