The folks you rely on to tell you if there’s going to be a snow day at school in the winter or flooding in your area in the summer… actually get a lot of key information from you. The National Weather Service relies on volunteer weather observers to provide real time weather data. That data helps meteorologists make more accurate predictions about potential risks.
Tim Halbach is the warning coordination meteorologist for NWS-Milwaukee. He says they’ve got a lot of technology to help them make forecasts, but nothing compares to what real people on the ground are seeing.
“Something that I think will always be a part of our decision making process is getting information from people that are on the ground,” he says. “We rely heavily on, in the moment, people telling us how bad is the storm, what kind of damage are you seeing, is there a tornado that’s occurring. We don’t have tools that can just physically tell us that.”
Those reporters have a title: weather observers. Anyone can be a part of the team, called the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network. And Halbach says that it’s fulfilling work. He says folks that are especially interested are those who rely on rain, such as gardeners or farmers.
“We can’t have enough observers,” he says. “Things change over a short amount of time or space. The more observers we can have as a part of this network, the better.”
Halbach says it’s not uncommon for rain amounts to vary field to field, which is why it’s important to get multiple reporters signed up even if they’re in the same area.
Another reason to sign up is to finally beat Minnesota, in the spirit of March Madness. The National Weather Service uses ‘March Madness’ as their campaign to sign up weather observers. Wisconsin continues to come in second place behind Minnesota.
NWS and Mid-West Farm Report are encouraging you to sign up! Just visit CoCoRaHs.org or wisconsinweatherwatchers.org, whichever is easier to remember — they go to the same place!
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