Become a CoCoRaHS Observer, Report Your Rainfall/Snowfall to the National Weather Service, (Every Drop Counts)

CoCoRaHS
Western and North Central Nebraska

Does weather fascinate you? If it does, you might be interested in joining thousands of people, from across the Country, who measure rain, hail, and snow. We are looking for people, all across western and north central Nebraska, to join the CoCoRaHS Network. Your observations will play a vital role, filling in gaps between official weather stations "because every drop counts". Your reports will convey important, and sometimes critical, information to forecasters at the National Weather Service. Your data will also be used by hydrologists, emergency managers, insurance adjusters, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, farmers, and city utilities (water supply, water conservations, storm water), among others.

What is CoCoRaHS? It's an acronym for Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network. It is a unique, non-profit, community-based network of volunteers, of all ages and backgrounds, working together to measure and map precipitation.

Why CoCoRaHS? The network originated, in 1998, with the Colorado Climate Center, at Colorado State University. The inspiration came from the flash flood that occurred the previous year. Since then, it has expanded to all 50 states and even Canada.

What is required? Access to a computer and the Internet, a little training, an official 4" rain gage, and a few minutes of your time each day. Details for purchasing the rain gage are on the CoCoRaHS website.

A special note: If you are an NeRAIN observer, in the state of Nebraska, you do not need to join. Your data is already ingested into CoCoRaHS.

What data are we looking for? Rainfall, snowfall, melted snowfall, the depth of snow on the ground, and, when it occurs, hail.

Have more questions? Check out these short CoCoRaHS videos.

The great thing about CoCoRaHS is that it keeps a record of all your observations, which you can easily browse through, and your observations get plotted along with thousands of others across the Nation.

While the national map suggests we have several observers in Nebraska, the truth is, we need more! When zoomed in, you can see we have a lot of holes that need to be filled in. So, please help us! We want to fill in as many gaps as possible. The counties in yellow are in the NWS North Platte forecast area.

If you're interested in getting started, or want more information, go to cocorahs.org. To get started, all you need to do is click on the brown button, in the upper right, that says "Join CoCoRaHS". It's also in the Main Menu selection in the upper left.

If you have questions, feel free to contact Rachel Kulik at rachel.kulik@noaa.gov, one of the meteorologists at the National Weather Service in North Platte and the CoCoRaHS Coordinator for Western and North Central Nebraska (the Western Region). If you are not in the Western Region, you can visit the Nebraska Coordinators CoCoRaHS Page to see your contact for your region.