Weather Watchers Wanted

Tuesday, 25 November 2014 at 06:38

With many weather stations not operating, the GRCA is looking for new Weather Watchers.

CAMBRIDGE - Calling all weather watchers.

Officials from Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network or CoCoRaHS, along with the Grand River Conservation Authority are hosting information sessions Wednesday for volunteers to help document storms and snow in our area.

Ontario Provincial Coordinator of CoCoRaHS Karla Jackson says the more data the better.

"There is gaps in automated stations whether they are public stations or private stations. Knowing how much rain and how much snow fell and when is very important for a wide range of people. From infrastructure and technology to flood forecasters and the Conservation Authorities, city managers, emergency managers preparing for coming floods in the spring. When we have the spring thaw and preparations for that. Farmers, if they need to irrigate or if they don't need to irrigate so a whole range of groups would be interested in it."

Jackson says the data collected will be available to anyone around the world. "They can look at the rain and snow all across Ontario, all across Canada and the United States as well. The data that they would be contributing is being used by Environment Canada and also NOAA in the United States and the National Weather Service as well as incorporating the data and providing more validation to their forecast and alerts as well to their citizens."

Jackson says anyone can participate. "You do have to order an official CoCoRaHS kit. We want to ensure that everyone is using the same equipment because then they are calibrated the same way for the shapes and the sides. Once you do that, we ship the kit to you and then you have to set it up in your yard and you can start reporting. Everyday the observations are made between 5 and 10 am." The kits are $30 each.

The three training sessions are being hosted on Wednesday, November 26 at 106-100 Stone Road West, Guelph. There are three times 10am, noon and 2:30 pm with each session lasting 90 minutes. Anyone looking for more information can email Jackson at ontario@cocorahs.org .