Crowdsourcing yields a more accurate picture of rainfall and snowfall
Friday, January 16, 2015 - 08:30
in Earth & Climate
It's the season of dramatic weather, when everyone from the National Weather Service to farmers and insurers monitor predictions of weather conditions—and assessments of where severe weather and its impacts are greatest. In this environment, a citizen science project called CoCoRaHS—the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network—makes possible a detailed view of rainfall, snowfall and hail in regions around the country. The organizers have found that precipitation is often highly variable—in extreme cases varying by inches at locations just a few blocks from each other.