PHOENIX - Meteorologists often gets calls asking, “Why aren’t you reporting what’s going on at my house."
The answer is usually, “Well, we don’t have a reporting site there.”
In this age of seemingly endless information, the “official” readings at Sky Harbor airport just won’t do for a lot of people. We all want specifics; we want details, city-by-city, street-by-street information.
While the network of Arizona observing stations has expanded quite a bit in the last decade, there was a time when the only weather-observing site was at the airport.
That made it extremely difficult to tell exactly what was happening to the east in Mesa or to the west in Glendale. Today, we have dozens of stations all over the Valley and we still get the same calls asking, “How much rain did I receive last night?”
To answer that question, meteorologists rely on you. That’s where
CoCoRaHS comes in.
CoCoRaHS stands for Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. It’s a non-profit, community-based network of volunteers who measure and map precipitation and it just came to Arizona this month.
Anyone can get involved. There are only two requirements: You must purchase your own rain gauge, which costs about $23.00, and go through some brief training either in person or online.
But the great thing is, the more people get involved, the more coverage we will have in Arizona and if you’re one of those people who need specifics at your house, you can easily measure it yourself.
As a volunteer,
CoCoRaHS will set you up to measure rain, hail and snow and then record your measurements online at
cocorahs.org.
Those measurements will get mapped out with everyone else’s to be used by a variety of people and organizations.
From meteorologists and engineers, to insurance adjusters and farmers, getting involved will help hundreds of people and organizations across the state and help fill in the missing pieces of the weather puzzle each day.
If you’d like more information on CoCoRaHS, you can check out their website at
cocorahs.org or contact State Climatologist Nancy Selover at 480-965-0580.
