You can help keep track of the rain

Weather watchers, storm seekers, temperature trackers, the National Weather Service wants you to join their growing army of people who submit Website precipitation data from their backyards.

All that’s needed is a four-inch-diameter rain gauge and a willingness to report in at 7 a.m. each day.

The information is important and useful, said Charles Bell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

“Radar can estimate but this is going to be even more accurate,” Bell said. “This is ground truth from the public.”

The information is logged onto a Website and meteorologists check the reports daily.

But some postings, such as falling hail, trigger an automatic alert so that the official weather watchers on duty can adjust their forecasts to be more accurate to what’s happening at the time, Bell said.

So far there are 320 volunteers statewide, including eight in Sonoma County, three in Mendocino, two in Lake and one in Napa counties.

“We want as many as possible,” Bell said. “You simply can’t get enough precipitation data.”

It’s known as the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network with a Web address of www.cocorahs.org.

Geyserville resident Earle Cummings signed up as a volunteer in December.

“I’ve been a weather junky since a long, long time ago,” said Cummings, retired from a career with the State of California including with fish and game and the water resources department.

Cummings lives above Lake Sonoma, on Rockpile Road, where his family history dates back to the mid 1800s. He hopes his daily effort will make a difference to people below, especially when heavy rains eventually come.

“The drive is to help people who live in areas that are susceptible to flooding. To help them anticipate when they’re going to be in trouble so they don’t get caught...” said Cummings, 65.

That’s the idea that started the volunteer weather program in Colorado in 1998, following serious flash floods. It was conceived as a way to get alerts to the public faster, Bell said.

Last year, the weather service started recruiting volunteers in California.

A goal was to get one observer per square mile in urban areas and one per 36 miles in rural areas.

But Bell would be happy to have volunteers in every neighborhood and community as rainfall differs from street to street and community to community.

Anyone can do it, including kids, with parental permission. He suggested it as a school project.

“It’s a great way for a hands-on experiment, to collect and submit data,” Bell said.

The only real request is that volunteers use a four-inch-diameter, non-automatic rain gauge, in an attempt to keep the gathering as uniform as possible, Bell said.

Once signed up as a volunteer, the person can quickly submit information taken at 7 a.m. to the Website. Even “zero” amounts should be submitted, Bell said.

As well as the rainfall numbers, volunteers also can add details of the day. Some offer terse assessments and others are more poetic or hopeful about the weather in their corner of the community.

“Overcast and trying to sprinkle, yeah!” wrote a Rohnert Park volunteer Wednesday morning.

Information on how to become a volunteer, where to get such a gauge and how best to position it is available on the Website or by emailing Bell at charles.bell@noaa.gov.