Balancing the desire for a friendly citizen science program with the need for accurate precipitation data

The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) is a citizen science program that is open to anyone who wants to know and share how much precipitation fell in their backyard. Most of the focus and funding for CoCoRaHS has been climate education and each year thousands of new volunteers of all ages and educational backgrounds join the program. However, as CoCoRaHS has expanded nationally, precipitation data from the network has become a mainstay for operational and research weather, climate, water and agricultural applications. This unique dichotomy of demand for accurate precipitation and climatological information on the part of data users as well as personalized attention and training on the part of data suppliers makes for an interesting quality control process. Since January of 2011, a meteorological student intern (i.e. me) has spearheaded CoCoRaHS quality control (QC) effort. Key topics addressed here will outline the daily QC process implemented in attempt to ensure the accuracy of CoCoRaHS data. This will include the daily challenges faced, the tools used, and the network of people responsible for QC. There will also be discussion as to how QC efforts can be improved as well as the where QC will be going in the future.