NWS Installs COOP Observer Station in East Detroit

January 17, 2024

The National Weather Service has struggled over the years to measure actual precipitation data in the city of Detroit. The official climatological station that tracks Detroit's precipitation is located in Romulus, at Detroit Metro Airport, which is over 20 miles outside the city. Aside from an Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) at Detroit Coleman Young (City) Airport, there have been virtually no weather reports from within Detroit. This includes snowfall reports. Precipitation reports are not only vital for the interest of the general public. They help improve forecasts and serve an important role in the development and improvement in storm water drainage mitigation programs.

Following the 2021 flooding which affected many Detroit neighborhoods, NWS Detroit increased efforts to try to obtain more rain and snowfall reports from within the city of Detroit. These efforts led to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Wayne State University (WSU). WSU has partnered with Eastside Community Network (ECN), a large nonprofit located on Conner St. just south of Warren Ave on Detroit’s east side, in an effort to create an east Detroit watershed to study how to better improve storm water drainage.

One of the means to begin the work of getting more rain and snow reports in Detroit was the installation of a cooperative observer station at ECN, the first COOP station in Detroit in the modern era. The National Weather Service’s Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) is the nation’s largest and oldest weather network. It was established in 1891 to formalize the collection of meteorological observations and establish/record climate conditions in the United State. Observations are now being taken daily at ECN. These observations consist of 24-hour maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall totals, snowfall totals, snow depth and liquid equivalent of snowfall amounts. The National Weather Service is excited about this partnership between WSU and ECN and is looking forward to working toward obtaining more rain and snowfall data within Detroit.

The pictures below were taken in early December at the installation of the COOP station at ECN. Any questions can be sent to steve.considine@noaa.gov.