CoCo RaHS (Community Collaborative Rain and Hail Study) Simple Science with Significant Results

Following a catastrophic flash flood that struck Fort Collins, Colorado, in July 1997, the Colorado Climate Center began an effort to get students, teachers, and adults of all ages involved in a project to study the highly localized patterns of rainfall and hail associated with spring and summer thunderstorms. Volunteers, equipped with a simple rain gauge and foil-covered foam pads that record the dents from hail stones, report precipitation daily on the CoCo RaHS Website or by phone. Using software written by participating students and adult volunteers, reports are immediately processed and displayed on the WEB. Preliminary results were presented at the AMS 8th Symposium on Education in January 1999.

Since that time, the project has grown rapidly. A grant from the National Science Foundation Geoscience Education Program is providing resources for training programs and development of instructional materials. By June 2000, more than two dozen teachers have been trained along with several hundred students and adult volunteers. In areas where project participation is high, maps of rainfall patterns and hail swaths are now showing remarkable local storm detail of great interest to weather forecasters, hydrologists and research scientists. During the summer of 2000, CoCo RaHS took a new step forward. Lead by a high school student from rural eastern Colorado, CoCo RaHS volunteers have teamed with scientists from several Universities and research laboratories to provide rain and hail data for the Severe Thunderstorm Electrification and Precipitation Study (STEPS) in eastern Colorado and western Kansas.

The beauty of CoCo RaHS is its simplicity and its local significance. Detailed rainfall patterns are not only interesting but very important. Local differences in rainfall and hail affect vegetation, crop production, storm drainage, erosion, recreation, and even insect populations like mosquitoes. The maps of daily rainfall quickly become very popular. More than twenty-five sponsors have come forward in Colorado to provide project support ranging from donated rain gauges and hail pads to computer hardware and funds for student and teacher internships. The National Weather Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are among a group of federal agencies helping to sponsor local projects. With such broad interest in the project, student volunteers soon feel important. Each participant's responsibilities are small, but the net result is a marvelous data set well suited for many classroom projects but also important for research, business, and resource management activities. Precipitation is important everywhere in the country. Efforts are now underway to expand Community Collaborative Rain and Hail Studies to other parts of the U.S.