To help usher in water year ’13, we’re challenging our neighbor state climate office to a friendly CoCoRaHS competition. We’ll be competing against the Washington State Climate Office, to see who can get the most new observers in their state before the Oregon State University Beavers take on the University of Washington Huskies in College Football on October 27. Let’s keep the Beavers winning spirit alive!

The program, CoCoRaHS, stands for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. It’s a nationwide program that has over 10,000 volunteers making daily measurements of precipitation. You may ask why we need additional precipitation measurement stations when we have airport and COOP stations. That’s a good question. Rain doesn’t fall the same on all – in fact, it can vary over a couple hundred feet. That’s where the volunteers come in to play.

How can I volunteer?

Join CoCoRaHS. This page will walk you through the steps. You’ll need to get a 4″ rain gauge and watch an online training.

Why the Beavers vs Huskies?

The Oregon State Climate office is located at OSU and the Washington State Climate office at UW. However, Ducks and Cougars are of course welcome to join. In fact, the county with the greatest CoCoRaHS participation  in Oregon is Lane County – home of the Ducks – so take that as a challenge, Beaver Nation!

How do I make sure my registration is captured for the contest?

We see all observers that sign up through CoCoRaHS and we’ll post a tally each week on our website and Twitter account

I have more questions about the program. Who should I contact?

No problem – give us a shout at oregon@coas.oregonstate.edu

Let’s go Beavs!