Utah to Join Statewide Precipitation Network in July

On July 1, Utahns will join a nationwide community-based network of volunteers scattered in over 30 states, who collect daily precipitation measurements to help improve maps, records and predictions of rain, hail and snowfall.

The project is sponsored in part by Cooperative Extension. The Utah Climate Center is coordinating Utah’s support within the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Program (CoCoRaHS). Esmaiel Malek, associate director of the Utah Climate Center, located at Utah State University, said many individuals and family volunteers of all ages and backgrounds will be solicited to help measure precipitation throughout Utah. Before collecting, volunteers must first register at CoCoRaHS Web site and then, if possible, attend an initial training session, purchase a CoCoRaHS rain gauge and, in order to submit observations, have access to the telephone or Internet.

 

Currently, 9,000 CoCoRaHS observers in the United States submit daily precipitation findings to the Web site from special 4-inch gauges and, in some cases, Styrofoam hail pads. Tables and maps of the precipitation measurements in each county and state that participate are subsequently available for all to view at cocorahs.org.

 

“Utah is a large state, and there is a shortage of precipitation measurement sites across the state from the mountains to deserts,” Malek said. “Official precipitation measurement sites across Utah are generally thinly distributed, so precipitation is often not reported in sufficient detail, particularly in sparsely populated counties. We are confident that CoCoRaHS volunteers can help us fill the gaps and gather this lacking, but important, precipitation data.”

 

CoCoRaHS began at Colorado State University in 1998 after a devastating flash flood submerged part of Fort Collins, Colo. The details of the storm were not reported by the existing network of weather stations so the population was not given adequate warning.

 

The non-profit CoCoRaHS network is sponsored in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Weather Service and other individual contributors and organizations, including Cooperative Extension. The long-term goal of CoCoRaHS is ultimately to recruit one volunteer observer per square mile in urban areas and one volunteer observer per 36 square miles in rural areas for all 50 states.