National Weather Service pushes for new weather observers in spirit of March Madness
Mar 19, 2022 05:52AM ● By Editor
By Brandon Weathers from WDIO-TV • March 18, 2022
March Madness may be about scoring baskets, but for the National Weather Service, it's about scoring new weather observers. Throughout the month, the NWS is actively searching for citizen scientists willing to join the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network - also known as CoCoRaHS.
CoCoRaHS is a non-profit community-based network of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds working together to measure and map precipitation.
"Our CoCoRaHS observers are a vital part of our operations here at NWS Duluth and they provide high quality data for natural resources, education and research applications well beyond the National Weather Service," the National Weather Service said in a press release.
The hope is for the active recruitment effort to strengthen the network of Northland weather observers. Many counties in northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin have gaps in observers, and these gaps are often in areas of few automatic observing stations or radar coverage. They are working hard to fill in these gaps, but will take new observers from any location.
As of March 18th, March Madness has recruited 809 new observers across the country. Minnesota is in a strong first position with 279 new observers. Wisconsin is in second place at 72.
Learn more and sign up here.
To see the original post and read related stories, follow this link to the WDIO-TV website. https://www.wdio.com/weather/nws-cocorahs-weather-observers/6422331/
