Seeing someone else's post about storm chasing me reminded me to tell everyone about CoCoRaHS, a national network of volunteers who monitor precipitation at their homes. I think a number of people here might be interested in participating. Here's an example of what they saw one day:
As you can see, they are generating some fine-grained data and it is being used for monitoring droughts and predicting floods. If you're seeing the same day as I am, you'll see the network caught some intense precipitation in KS & NE that might have been missed by the official, but more scattered weather stations.
If you're interested in participating, your cost is ~$30 to for a rain gauge and your time to measure the level of precipitation every morning. You can learn more at http://www.cocorahs.org/. I can't do it because of the too-tight spacing of trees and houses around my little yard. If you have the space and the interest, it would be a cool thing to do, especially if you live in one of the network's empty spaces.
As you can see, they are generating some fine-grained data and it is being used for monitoring droughts and predicting floods. If you're seeing the same day as I am, you'll see the network caught some intense precipitation in KS & NE that might have been missed by the official, but more scattered weather stations.
If you're interested in participating, your cost is ~$30 to for a rain gauge and your time to measure the level of precipitation every morning. You can learn more at http://www.cocorahs.org/. I can't do it because of the too-tight spacing of trees and houses around my little yard. If you have the space and the interest, it would be a cool thing to do, especially if you live in one of the network's empty spaces.
