Community Corner
You Too Can Be a Weather Wizard
It can be raining in the front yard and sunny in the back. Track rain, snow and hail for CoCoRaHS ; learn how Tuesday evening.
OK, so CoCoRaHS doesn’t exactly flow trippingly off the tongue.
Think of it as “weather wizards” instead, with members helping monitor the weather in their own back yards.
CoCoRaHS stands for the “Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow” network and is a grassroots volunteer system of backyard weather observers of all ages working together to measure and map precipitation—rain, hail and snow—in their local communities.
Find out what's happening in Genevawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
And a training and informational session for those who may want to be a monitor, from Geneva and all of the Kane County area, is at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Kane County Extension Office of the University of Illinois, 535 S. Randall Road, St. Charles.
The session is free.
Find out what's happening in Genevawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The only requirements, according to the organization, is an “enthusiasm for watching and reporting weather conditions and a desire to lean more about how the weather can affect and impact our lives.” The web page lets observes see their observations mapped out in “real time,” as well as providing a wealth of information for data users.
It only takes a few minutes a day to participate.
The Extension Service said that “by using low-cost measurement tools, stressing training and education, and utilizing an interactive website, the aim is to provide the highest quality data for natural resource, education and research applications.”
The network got its start in Colorado in 1998, and currently observers in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia. The data collected are used by climatologists, hydrologists, water managers and the National Weather Service. The organization hopes to have 30,000 to 40,000 observers by the end of 2013.
Here's more information on the organization.
Presenters include to Steve Hilberg, coordinator of the group for Illinois as well as director of the Midwestern Regional Climate Center; William Morris, hydrologist from the National Weather Service of Chicago and Jon Snurka, CoCoRaHS Kane County Coordinator. Pre-registration is required. Visit https://webs.extension.uiuc.edu/registration/?RegistrationID=5472.
