![]() At our station in Castle Hayne, just north of Wilmington, the rain gauge cable was accidentally cut the day before the storm hit. Without nearby CoCoRaHS stations, we would not have many of the highest rainfall reports from this event, including the 35.93-inch total from near Elizabethtown that, while still being verified by the National Weather Service, could be the new state record for rainfall during a tropical event.ĬoCoRaHS data also helped our office during and after Florence. Tim Armstrong from NWS Wilmington stated that their office used a rain gauge in their parking lot for guidance during Florence when these electronic systems were down. Our ECONet station on Bald Head Island lost power during Florence, along with many other electronic systems in southeast NC that the NWS relies on. Knowledge of those small variations could help meteorologists and hydrologists determine whether a river might overflow into someone’s backyard! It’s one more reason why CoCoRaHS volunteers are so important! Filling in the GapsĬoCoRaHS observers were reporting during the storm even when a few of our stations were not. This significant difference, while it does not imply that CoCoRaHS stations are more accurate than automated networks, does help show how much local variation there can be in rainfall amounts. In the Piedmont region of North Carolina, CoCoRaHS measurements gave an average rainfall of 6.6 inches, compared to 6 inches without, and in the Coastal Plain, CoCoRaHS measurements produced an average of 11.3 inches, a full inch greater than the average from other networks! Or as Glenn said, “so long as someone checks their CoCoRaHS rain gauge daily, they will forever become a part of history for extreme precipitation events like Hurricane Florence.”ĬoCoRaHS stations made a difference in the statistics recorded during Hurricane Florence. The amount of data that these observers amass is huge in comparison to the effort individual observers have to go to. The second map (right) shows how coverage increases when CoCoRaHS observations are added in. The first map (left) shows rainfall totals across the state recorded by each of the other major networks: Automated Surface Observing Systems ( ASOS), which are airport-based sites operated by the National Weather Service ECONet, the State Climate Office’s network Remote Automated Weather Stations ( RAWS), or stations geared toward forest monitoring and COOP, which provide temperature and precipitation measurements from the NWS’s Cooperative Observer Network. ![]() ![]() Use the slider below to compare the two imagesįlorence Rainfall Totals excluding (left) and including (right) CoCoRaHS stations, September 13-17, 2018. Especially in the heaviest-hit parts of southeastern North Carolina, CoCoRaHS observers provided valuable data in areas otherwise lacking reports. So, how did CoCoRaHS help? The image comparison below show North Carolina’s coverage of precipitation observations with and without CoCoRaHS reports. Although Florence weakened to a Category-1 by the time it made landfall, its main impact on North Carolina was not from its wind but from its extreme rainfall and widespread flooding. That was proven once again during Hurricane Florence last fall. “An additional benefit of the program to the National Weather Service is the ability to receive timely reports of significant weather such as hail, intense rainfall, or localized flooding from CoCoRaHS observers that can assist meteorologists in issuing and verifying warnings for severe thunderstorms,” said David Glenn, the CoCoRaHS state co-coordinator and a National Weather Service meteorologist in Morehead City. Without a doubt, CoCoRaHS observers provide important data to meteorologists all over the nation, filling in gaps and providing valuable local insight. In the past, we’ve covered how CoCoRaHS reports help inform our office, the National Weather Service, and the statewide drought monitoring process. If you’d like to become a CoCoRaHS observer, simply sign up at, order an official rain gauge (CoCoRaHS recommends purchasing from WeatherYourWay), set it up and view some training materials, and start reporting your totals online every day! The Benefits of CoCoRaHS It’s never a bad time to sign up to be a CoCoRaHS observer, but if you register this month, you could also help North Carolina claim its fifth title in the annual March Madness competition to recruit new observers.
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