Ten years ago when the National Weather Service announced plans to restructure the management of the NWS Cooperative Program, climatologists became very concerned. A position paper was published and distributed by the American Association of State Climatologists expressing concern for possible adverse impacts on the network resulting from the realignment of National Weather Service personnel. The spreading of responsibilities for the program from a small number of staff focused strictly on the Cooperative Program to a much larger number of staff sharing many other responsibilities was considered a likely detriment to the program.

Ten years later, the Colorado Climate Center undertook an assessment of the quality and performance of the Cooperative Program in Colorado to see how the NWS Cooperative Program has been faring. The results of this recent survey will be presented. At this time, only data from Colorado have been examined and compared. Changes in number of cooperative stations will be assessed. Frequency of missing reports and missing daily values as well as overall data quality will be evaluated. The results of a survey of cooperative observers will be presented assessing their level of satisfaction with how they feel they have been treated as the management of the systems has changed. Finally, some reactions from NWS personnel who have been working with the Cooperative Program throughout this past decade will be described.