WERA1012: Managing and Utilizing Precipitation Observations from Volunteer Networks (from WDC43)

(Multistate Research Coordinating Committee and Information Exchange Group)

Status: Active

Project Menu

SAES-422 Reports

Annual/Termination Reports:

[06/01/2022] [07/31/2023]

Date of Annual Report: 06/01/2022

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 05/17/2022 - 05/19/2022
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2019 - 04/30/2022

Participants

Participants Attachment:

WERA1012_SAES-422_Report_2022Participants.docx

Brief Summary of Minutes

Meeting Minutes for Virtual Meetings in 2020 and 2021 as well as Hybrid In-Person/Virtual Meeting held in 2022 attached.

Minutes Attachment:

WERA1012_Summary_of_Meeting_Minutes_2020-2022.pdf

Accomplishments

Short-term Outcomes: 2019: <ul> <li>Annual fundraiser accrued $120,340 from 2,863 donors ($42.03/donor)</li> </ul> 2020: <ul> <li>Moved QC database from Midwest Regional Climate Center to a CoCoRaHS server allowing for a better user interface and improved processes.  QC tickets decreased by more than 20% from the previous 12 month period.</li> <li>New software migration project to Azure progressed and will soon allow for improved mapping, emailing observers, QC, cloud storage and web applications.</li> <li>Annual fundraiser accrued $175,242 from 3,345 donors ($47.32/donor)</li> </ul> 2021: <ul> <li>Software and QC database migration into Azure fully complete with improvements to mapping, emailing observers, QC, cloud storage and web applications - more below.</li> <li>Annual fundraiser accrued $195,014 from 2,906 donors ($67.11/donor)</li> </ul> 2022: <ul> <li>CoCoRaHS growth continues with a record number of stations - now over 25,000 and a record number of reports, now regularly over 15,000 per day and over 5 million per year.</li> </ul> Outputs:  2020: <ul> <li>The number of daily reports have grown 39.7% in the past 10 years and 4.5% in 2019.</li> <li>The number of observers has also grown 37.2% over the last 10 years, but the 2019 increase was less than 1%.</li> <li>Watershed mapping product made available to the public: <a href="https://cocorahs.erams.com/">https://cocorahs.erams.com/</a> </li> </ul> 2021: <ul> <li>New Water-Year Summary reports were released, now dynamic and updated hourly: <a href="https://wys.cocorahs.org/">https://wys.cocorahs.org/</a></li> <li>Interacitve mapping product released to the public: <a href="https://maps.cocorahs.org/">https://maps.cocorahs.org/</a> </li> </ul> 2022: <ul> <li>Ice Accretion pilot year - research to practice</li> </ul> Activities: Henry Reges, CoCoRaHS National Coordinator, visited 13 National Weather Service offices this year to promote CoCoRaHS and to connect with the many NWS staff who serve as volunteer state and regional coordinators for CoCoRaHS. The following is a list of presentations made during the report period. May 2021 <ul> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Wichita, KS</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Goodland, KS</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Dodge City, KS</li> </ul> June 2021 <ul> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Albuquerque, NM</li> <li>Various organizations in Northern New Mexico</li> </ul> August 2021 <ul> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Fairbanks, AK</li> <li>State Climate Office – Coordinator visit/presentation – Fairbanks, AK</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Anchorage, AK</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Juneau, AK</li> <li>Various additional organizations throughout Alaska</li> </ul> December 2021 <ul> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Little Rock, AR</li> <li>State Climate Office – Coordinator visit – Little Rock, AR</li> <li>Various additional organizations throughout Central/NW Arkansas</li> </ul> March 2022 <ul> <li>ZOOM presentation to the LEO network – Alaska</li> </ul> Noah Newman, CoCoRaHS Education and Outreach Coordinator: 2020: • NOAA Citizen Science Workshop – April 2020 • Live appearance on The Weather Channel – April, 2020 • School presentation - CoCoRaHS in North Carolina – May, 2020 • Denver Library Staff presentation – May, 2020 • SciStarter and CoCoRaHS presentation – August, 2020 • Explora Science Fiesta – September, 2020 • Hosted a breakout room for the CSU SPUR Water in the West Symposium – November, 2020 • Zoom class to 4th graders in Denver – December, 2020 • 9News Interview – December, 2020 2021: • Presentation to GLOBE-ESS group – Putting CitSci into Practice – January, 2021 • April 26, 2021: Water & Weather Scientists LIVE in Virtual Expo Hall (Spotty Rain) • May 20, 2021: Presentation to TCARES (Tippecanoe County Amateur Radio Emergency Service) about CoCoRaHS • May 26, 2021: NOAA 2021 Environmental Literacy Program PI Workshop (CoCoRaHS presentation) • June 1, 2021: Appearance on Podcast: Rain or Shine (along with Nolan and Henry) about CoCoRaHS. • June 11, 2021: In-person event in Greeley – Teacher Appreciation Event at Houston Gardens • June 21, 2021: NIDIS Southwest Drought Briefing – presented about CoCoRaHS after the briefing • July 21, 2021: Town of Windsor – Water and Sewer Board – CoCoRaHS presentation • August 20, 2021: NOAA EDM (Environmental Data Management) workshop – CoCoRaHS presentation • August 24, 2021: New Mexico Explora virtual workshop – CoCoRaHS presentation • September 7, 2021: Denver Christian and Denver Water partnership – CoCoRaHS pitch to teachers • September 16, 2021: Water Education Colorado – film clips and panelist event with Russ - CoCoRaHS • September 30, 2021: Weather and the Caribbean – presentation to school in British Virgin Islands NSF Project "Spotty Rain" - focused on libraries engaging the public in drought-monitoring in the Great Plains Region - <a href="http://www.spottyrain.org/">http://www.spottyrain.org/</a> NSF Project "We Are Water" - focused on libraries engaging the public in water-education in the Four Corners Region - <a href="https://wearewater.colorado.edu/">https://wearewater.colorado.edu/</a>  2022: <ul> <li>Utilized research noted in previous report to implement a test protocol for measuring ice storms and accepting photos.</li> <li>Created new protocol and data entry pages with intentions for improving/testing one more year before implementing fully into the CoCoRaHS website: <a href="https://www.cocorahs.org/Content.aspx?page=ice-accretion-pilot">https://www.cocorahs.org/Content.aspx?page=ice-accretion-pilot</a></li> </ul>   Milestones: 2021: <ul> <li>NOAA included more than 5,400 CoCoRaHS stations in their newly updated Climate Normals: <a href="https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/noaa-delivers-new-us-climate-normals">https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/noaa-delivers-new-us-climate-normals</a> </li> <li>CoCoRaHS was recognized and highlighted as a case study in the Federal Crowdsourcing Citizen Science Toolkit: <a href="https://www.citizenscience.gov/cocorahs-precipitation/">https://www.citizenscience.gov/cocorahs-precipitation/#</a> </li> </ul>

Publications

Grieser, J. and M. Hill, 2019: How to Express Hail Intensity—Modeling the Hailstone Size Distribution. J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., 58, 2329–2345, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-18-0334.1">https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-18-0334.1</a> Goble, Peter E., Nolan J. Doesken, Imke Durre, Russ S. Schumacher, Abigail Stewart, and Julian Turner, 2019: Who Received the Most Rain Today?: An Analysis of Daily Precipitation Extremes in the Contiguous United States Using CoCoRaHS and COOP Reports, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 101, 6 (2019): E710-E719. Smith, Kelly Helm, 2019: Drought Impacts: Detecting Deviation from Expectation across Space and Time. ETD collection for University of Nebraska - Lincoln. October, 2019, AAI27547805. Renato Morbidelli, et al, 2020: The history of rainfall data time-resolution in a wide variety of geographical areas. Journal of Hydrology, Volume 590, 125258, ISSN 0022-1694, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125258">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125258</a>. Goble, Peter E., Nolan J. Doesken, Imke Durre, Russ S. Schumacher, Abigail Stewart, and Julian Turner, 2020: Strength in Numbers: Daily Precipitation Extremes over CONUS, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 101, 8 (2020): E679-E682 Henry Reges & Nolan Doesken, 2020: A Day in the Life of the CoCoRaHS Network, Weatherwise, 73:4, 32-39, DOI: 10.1080/00431672.2020.1762416 Campbell JL, Rustad LE, Garlick S, Newman N, Stanovick JS, Halm I, Driscoll CT, Barjenbruch BL, Burakowski E, Hilberg SD, Sanders KJ, Shafer JC, Doesken NJ., 2020: A comparison of low-cost collector configurations for quantifying ice accretion. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 59: 1429-1442, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-19-0280.1">https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-19-0280.1</a>. Montano, P., Gold, A., Leckey, E., et al., 2020: We Are Water - Community Perspectives at the Center of Designing Informal STEM Education Experiences About Water, AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, vol. 2020, 2020. Rongstad, B, Montano, P., Newman, N., et al., 2021: We Are Water - Community Voices and Collaborative Partnerships Inform Development of Informal STEAM Education Experiences, AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, vol. 2021, 2021. Spaccio, Jessica, Arthur DeGaetano, and Nolan Doesken, 2021: COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Orders Result in a Decrease in the Number of Missing Daily Precipitation Observations, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 102, 3 (2021): 207-209 Elmore, K. L., Allen, J. T., & Gerard, A. E., 2022 : Sub-Severe and Severe Hail, American Meteorological Society, Weather and Forecasting, 37(8), 1357-1369.

Impact Statements

CoCoRaHS is a designated case study in the Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit: https://www.citizenscience.gov

Date of Annual Report: 07/31/2023

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 05/16/2023 - 05/18/2023
Period the Report Covers: 05/01/2022 - 04/30/2023

Participants

Colin Gholson South Dakota State University Extension
Laura Richard Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Russ Schumacher Colorado State University
Casey Olson Utah Climate Center
Joel Lisonbee NOAA/NIDIS/CU Boulder, CIRES
Tye Parzybok Climalytic Instruments, LLC
Alicia Wasula STM Weather
Alexis Clouser Forecaster
Keith Thompson CoCoRaHS
Shawn Byrne National Weather Service
Bill Sorensen High Plains Regional Climate Center
Ketzel Levens National Weather Service Duluth MN
Sean Poulos National Weather Service
Alexa Davis NE Dept. of Natural Resources
Dehvynne Ashmore NE Dept. of Natural Resources
James Williams Nebraska Department of Natural Resources
Jim Zdrojewski NWS Climate Services
Tony Bergantino Wyoming State Climate Office
Beth Hall Purdue University
Amy Fritz National Weather Service
Nancy J Selover Arizona State Climate Office Retired
Kelly Smith NDMC - University of Nebraska
Christopher Daly Oregon State University/PRISM
Matthew Sittel Kansas State University
Rachel Kulik Nebraska state coordinator
Noah Newman CoCoRaHS HQ
Julian Turner CoCoRaHS HQ
Henry Reges CoCoRaHS HQ
Nolan Doesken founder of CoCoRaHS
Carol Stolz CoCoRaHS HQ
Steve Hilberg CoCoRaHS HQ and Illinois State Coordinator

Brief Summary of Minutes

Minutes Attachment:

WERA-1012_Summary_of_Minutes_2023meeting.docx

Accomplishments

Short-term Outcomes: <ul> <li>26,122 stations have submitted a Daily Report in the past 365 days.</li> <li>Condition Monitoring Reports – up 6% from previous year.</li> <li>Evapotranspiration Reports – up 5% from previous year.</li> <li>Significant Weather Reports – up 7% from previous year.</li> <li>Hail Reports – up 22% from previous year.</li> </ul>   Outputs:  <ul> <li>The number of daily reports have grown 0.7% in the last year – 87% in 13 years.</li> <li>The number of observers has also grown 2.3% over the last year – 70% in 13 years.</li> <li>Multiday reports saw a 10% increase.</li> <li>DEx in final phases of testing</li> <li>Ice Accretion 2nd year - research to practice.</li> </ul>   Activities: Henry Reges, CoCoRaHS National Coordinator: State/Regional/Local Presentations-Exhibits-Gatherings This travel portion taken includes CoCoRaHS canvasing of FSA, Conservation District offices, state extension, NRCS, Forest Service, libraries, potential donors, NWS, state climate offices, drought partners, etc. June 2022 <ul> <li>Southwest Drought Learning Network Annual Meeting – presentation – Las Cruces, NM</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Albuquerque, NM</li> <li>American Association of State Climatologists Annual Meeting – attendee – Durham, NH</li> </ul> July 2022 <ul> <li>National Hydrologic Warning Council – virtual ZOOM presentation</li> <li>NWS Central Region OPL Meeting – virtual ZOOM presentation</li> </ul> August 2022 <ul> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Billings, MT</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Great Falls, MT</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Missoula, MT</li> <li>Montana State Climate Office – Coordinator visit – Missoula, MT</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit/presentation – Pocatello, ID</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Davenport, IA</li> <li>Midwest Regional Climate Hub/Iowa State Univ.  – visit with Director – Ames, IA</li> <li>Iowa Flood Center/Univ of Iowa – presentation – Iowa City, IA</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Des Moines, IA</li> </ul>  September 2022 <ul> <li>Louisiana Cattlemen Association – virtual ZOOM presentation</li> <li>USGS-ITEP Client Day Workshop at the 16thBiennial Conference of Science & Management on the</li> <li>Colorado Plateau & Southwest Region – Tribal presentation – Flagstaff, AZ</li> <li>Various visits to NPS Headquarters at Zion NP and Bryce NP, Regional Coordinator visit St. George, UT</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit – Las Vegas, NV</li> <li>2nd North American Hail Workshop – Panel Member, poster –  Boulder, CO</li> </ul> October 2022 <ul> <li>2nd WMO GCOS Climate Observation Conference – virtual ZOOM presentation – Darmstadt, Germany</li> </ul> November 2022 <ul> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit/presentation – Springfield, MO</li> <li>NWS Central Region Headquarters visit/presentation – Kansas City, MO</li> <li>National Weather Service Office– Coordinator visit/presentation – Pleasant Hill (KC), MO</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit/presentation – Topeka, KS</li> <li>Kansas State Climate Office – Coordinator visit – Manhattan, KS</li> <li>University of Nebraska – class presentation – Lincoln, NE</li> <li>National Drought Mitigation Center – staff visit – Lincoln, NE</li> </ul> December 2022 <ul> <li>Citizen Science Organization – virtual ZOOM presentation</li> </ul> January 2023 <ul> <li>American Metrological Society Annual Meeting – Student Conference Keynote Address – Denver, CO</li> <li>American Metrological Society Annual Meeting – Session Chair/presentation – Denver, CO</li> <li>American Metrological Society Annual Meeting – Town Hall presentation – Denver, CO</li> </ul> February 2023 <ul> <li>Louisiana State Government, FSA, Dept of Natural Resources – virtual ZOOM presentation.</li> </ul> March 2023 <ul> <li>National Weather Service Office– Coordinator visit/presentation – Jacksonville, FL</li> <li>University of Florida, Geography Dept – presentation – Gainesville, FL</li> <li>National Weather Service Office – Coordinator visit/presentation – Melbourne, FL</li> </ul> April 2023 <ul> <li>National Weather Service Office– Coordinator visit/presentation – Tampa, FL</li> <li>US Drought Monitor Forum - presentation — Boulder City, NV</li> <li>Southwest Tribal Drought Conversation - presentation/exhibit — Flagstaff, AZ</li> <li>National Weather Service Office– Coordinator visit/presentation – Tucson, AZ</li> <li>National Weather Service Office– Coordinator visit/presentation – Phoenix, AZ </li> </ul> Noah Newman, CoCoRaHS Education and Outreach Coordinator: <ul> <li>Mozilla Hub - April 7 – presented live in a virtual-reality on-line science museum.</li> <li>CoCoRaHS presentation at Ivy Stockwell School in Berthoud - April 14 – school garden club</li> <li>Live interview on The Weather Channel - April 20 </li> <li>Citizen Science 2022 Conference (virtual) - May 24 - Poster session presentation</li> <li>NOAA panel for Citizen Science in Fisheries - August 23 – invited by NOAA Office of Education</li> <li>School presentations in Durango - November 3 – 2 schools during the We Are Water project in Bayfield.</li> <li>Presentation to the GLOBE Program - December 5 – Ideas to Impact: ESS Collaborative invitation</li> <li>AMS Conference presentations - January 11-12 – co-presentation with Jenny Hastings and co-panelist with Henry Reges</li> <li>Space Science Institute – February 16 - CoCoRaHS presentation about celebrating water on Earth Day</li> <li>Presentation to Trail Life Scouts - March 29 – CoCoRaHS presentation to scout group in Loveland.</li> </ul>     Milestones: <ul> <li>On the software development front, we worked on the unified data access layer, prototyping or planning several long-term projects, and developing the station data dashboard.</li> <li>Development of the CoCoRaHS Data Explorer (DEx) - https://dex.cocorahs.org/.  The Data Explorer is an evolution of the Water Year Summary Dashboard and the NOAA Normals data products we released last year. Our goals are to provide the water year summary data products over flexible date ranges, and to incorporate NOAA and PRISM Normals data to provide a climatological context to the station data. We also hope that by highlighting gaps in station data, we can encourage observers to report more consistently in the future.</li> </ul>

Publications

<ul> <li>Joseph, Naveen et al., 2022: Evaluating the impact of turbidity, precipitation, and land use on nutrient levels and atrazine concentrations in Illinois surface water as determined by citizen scientists , The Science of the total environment, 158081. 16 Aug. 2022.</li> <li>Lackstrom, Kirsten, Amanda Farris, and Rebecca Ward, 2022. Backyard Hydroclimatology: Citizen Scientists Contribute to Drought Detection and Monitoring, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., (published online ahead of print 2022).</li> <li>Fleishman, E., & Climate Change Research Institute, O., 2023: Sixth Oregon climate assessment. : [Corvallis, Oregon] : Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, Oregon State University.</li> <li>Fuka D, Garna RK, Easton Z, Faulkner J, Collick AS., 2023: Benefits of Using Higher Density Lower Reliability Weather Data from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) Monitors for Watershed Modelling. Authorea Preprints; 2023. DOI: 10.22541/au.168252658.82280850/v1.</li> </ul>

Impact Statements

CoCoRaHS data are used in grids by PRISM, which in turn are used by the crop insurance industry. CoCoRaHS data save tax payers millions and millions of dollars per year, with $100 billion of crop value insured every year.
In addition to Condition Monitoring Reports, CoCoRaHS rainfall and evapotranspiration measurements are incorporated into drought monitoring tools at the Midwest Regional Climate Center: https://mrcc.purdue.edu/cliwatch/drought/drought.jsp
CoCoRaHS is a source of new U.S. Coop observers
CoCoRaHS data are used by Natural Resource Conservation Service range condition recommendations, which in turn feeds decision by producers (stocking).
CoCoRaHS Condition Monitoring Reports have had a significant positive impact on the assessment of drought. For example, The North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council incorporates report information into the weekly state drought map. NWS Forecast Offices in the Carolinas reported using the reports to recommend the drought status in their county warning areas and for other products and forecasts (e.g., fire weather warnings). US Drought Monitor map authors download the reports each week as a GIS layer, as part of their “convergence of evidence” in designating drought.
CoCoRaHS precipitation data and Significant Weather Reports are used to verify radar, and are part of NWS Local Storm Reports (LSR) during severe weather and snowstorms. They are used in “event maps” for significant storms by NWS offices.
CoCoRaHS Snowfall data are used to secure federal snow removal aid (FEMA). Snowfall used to determine resolution of snow plowing contracts.
The National Hurricane Center uses CoCoRaHS for post‐storm analysis.
CoCoRaHS data provides the observational density to ensure the quality of both networks (CoCoRaHS and COOP).
CoCoRaHS data used to quality control U.S. Cooperative data, and vice versa.
CoCoRaHS data are used to help verify State Records from the COOP network, and high quality CoCoRaHS observations can also set records for precipitation.
CoCoRaHS is a designated case study in the Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit: https://www.citizenscience.gov
CoCoRaHS promotes the use of citizen scientist data in the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network (NCSMMN).