You can let us know how much rain, hail, or snow you measured in your backyard by joining the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network - CoCoRaHS. CoCoRaHS has now expanded to include 30 states across the country with 5 more scheduled to join by the end of 2008. CoCoRaHS is a non-profit, community-based network of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds working together to measure and report precipitation data. This new program will help meteorologists, researchers, the media, and others see and study the variability of precipitation across the western Carolinas and northeast Georgia. The accumulated precipitation data will be available to anyone using the Web.

One of the newest states to join the CoCoRaHS network is Georgia which will officially begin on May 1st, 2008. Interested volunteers in Georgia can join the program now by going to the CoCoRaHS web site at: http://www.cocorahs.org. For more information regarding CoCoRaHS in Georgia, interested volunteers can contact Pam Knox with the University of Georgia at pknox@uga.edu.

CoCoRaHS is also going strong across both North Carolina and South Carolina. After joining the program September 1st, 2007, North Carolina already has over 400 volunteer observers across the state. Likewise, CoCoRaHS expanded to include South Carolina starting March 1st, 2008 and has had great response with over 200 volunteer observers in a very short period of time. Both states are still looking for more observers and those who are interested can go to the CoCoRaHS web site to join.

For more information about CoCoRaHS in North Carolina, feel free to send an email to Terry.Benthall@noaa.gov or to Blair.Holloway@noaa.gov. For South Carolina, you can email Patricia.Tanner@noaa.gov or to Blair.Holloway@noaa.gov.

Local Volunteer Coordinators and Observers are needed now to help grow this network across the western Carolinas and northeast Georgia. The main duties of the volunteer coordinators will be to help answer new observer questions, contact new observers to help start reporting, and help with training - although training slides and information are available at the CoCoRaHS Web site. Other Volunteer Coordinator duties along with answers to most questions can be found searching through the tabs on the CoCoRaHS main Web page.

Thank you for your interest in CoCoRaHS - Because Every Drop Counts!