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Neighbor News

Community Rain Gauge on Montara Mountain

"Because every drop counts" -CoCoRaHS

Hi. My name is Richard and I’m a CoCoRaHS observer.

There—I said it.

Like most addictions, it started innocently enough: an empty peanut butter jar out in the back yard, measuring with a ruler, not really sharing the information, but curious enough to watch the weather report and see how my measurement compared... But now, it’s all about measuring to the nearest hundredth of an inch in a graduated cylinder that magnifies any accumulation, then posting the information online in a crowd-sourced database of precipitation that spans all 50 states and parts of Canada!!!!!

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(catching my breath...got too excited...okay...)

In case you hadn’t followed up on the question in my last post, CoCoRaHS stands for the Community Collaborative for Rain, Hail & Snow Network. It’s a volunteer effort to contribute high-quality measurements of precipitation for a better understanding of how much rain actually fell in any particular place, and how precipitation varies from place to place.

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After a rain, we usually hear about the “official” rainfall totals observed at SFO, Half Moon Bay, or some other airport …but what about the places in between? How much rain fell in those places? What about up on Skyline?, or down at Pigeon Point?, or on top of Montara Mountain?, or at your place? It’s true that some of the gaps have been filled by local weather buffs and schools that have weather stations online, but there are still many, many gaps in the coverage.

And so... (drum roll, please)

We now have a rain gauge up on Montara Mountain, and you are invited to go visit, observe, and report any precipitation that has accumulated! In fact, this effort won’t work without your help...

Hikers, bikers, runners, dog walkers, geocachers, locals, visitors… Whoever you are, however you get up there, now there’s something more to observe when you get near the summit. This is really an exercise in citizen science, and we (well, me, as part of CoCoRaHS) are hoping that the community will participate in this effort to better understand the rainfall patterns of our area.

Who knows what you will observe? It may be dry where you live, and you find 0.15 inches have accumulated up on the mountain; Or you may know that it rained last night, but you get up there and find the gauge empty because someone got there before you arrived; Or you might find 0.73 inches of rain that fell 4 days ago and nobody had reported their observation since that rain...We just won’t know until you get up there and report what you observe. And keep in mind that it’s just as important to report a dry gauge (0.00) as it is to report some other amount. It’s just funner to discover and report something other than zero (yes, I said “funner”).

Where is it? - The gauge is attached to a sign post along the North Peak Access Road, south of the summit, and just west of the SFPUC watershed gate, as shown in the lead photo with this post. If you’re into maps or GPS, the lat/lon coordinates are: 37.56055, -122.47803

>> Attached to the rain gauge is a label with instructions on how to contribute your observations. You might like to explore the links here before you visit the gauge; and don’t hesitate to send me a message if you have any questions: “howmuchrain” at gmail [dot] com. Once you are there, a QR code on the label also links to the report form.

It’s also worth noting that this project is being done with permission of the National Park Service, GGNRA, and with special thanks to our local contact for Rancho Corral de Tierra, who guided me through the permit process. Thanks :-)

Okay. I’m excited to add this remote observation point to the CoCoRaHS database, and even more excited to see how the community responds to this effort. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the results!

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