Perhaps you watch the news to get information on daily weather events. Or you may head to your favorite weather site online. But these sources normally report for larger areas than just Johns Creek. But as you know, your weather may vary drastically from the “official” weather recorded at the Atlanta airport.
There is one site that can give you the most precise answer to the question we all ask, “How much rain did we get? The answers can be found at CoCoRaHS, the Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow Network. We are a volunteer network of thousands of weather observer who daily report rain totals. We are in all fifty states. We also report on snow, hail, and drought conditions and impacts.
After a devastating flood in Fort Collins Colorado in 1997, CoCoRaHs formed with the objective of gathering better information for mapping and reporting intense weather storms. The network of volunteer observers has grown since 2008, and we now have over 11,000 observers.
As a volunteer observer myself, I have been reporting daily rain totals for more than 8 years. The highest daily total recorded was 4.13 inches on 11/10/2009. Also, we have had more than 25 days since July of 2008 where we have had more than 2 inches of rain and five with more than 3 inches of rain.
Johns Creeks can use this information to determine whether or not they need to run their sprinklers, for instance, if we have had more than sufficient rain over the last week, saving themselves money in the process, and reducing our water demands from our local resources.
Here is a link to a map of Metro Atlanta, where you can see the varying rain totals from yesterday: http://www.cocorahs.org/Maps/GetMap.aspx?state=GA&county=FT&type=precip
As you can see, there are many volunteers in the Metro Atlanta Area. Since the rain totals can vary a great amount in a short distance, the more data points we have, the better the understanding of our rain patterns.Volunteers of all ages contribute to this effort, and we would like to encourage you to do the same. Many schools have also joined in using CoCoRaHS as part of the Science curriculum. It only takes a few minutes a day, and is providing useful information on our environment that we did not have before.
All one needs to get started is a few minutes a day, and one of the official CocoRaHS 4 inch diameter rain gauges. The standard rain gauge ensures that we are all measuring in the same way. There are also training videos at the CoCoRaHS site for creating Hail Pads (for recording the size of hail) and other interesting aspects of precipitation.
The start of March kicks off our CoCoRaHS March Madness, where we see how many new volunteers we can recruit in each state. There is always a need for a greater number of observations and observers. If you do not have the time to become a volunteer, be sure to mention it to your students and neighbors,who may have an interest. And be sure to utilize the maps and other features of the CoCoRaHS website provides.
For more information, visit: http://www.cocorahs.org
Ernest Moosa
