NEWPORT — North Carolina is looking for a three-peat.
There’s a March Madness competition going on that has nothing to do with basketball, and North Carolina currently runs a close second behind Texas in its effort to keep its title.
For the past two years, North Carolina has led the way in recruiting volunteer weather observers for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow (CoCoRaHS) program.
Volunteers are welcome to join the network at any time, but each March there is a competition among the states to recruit new volunteers.
North Carolina edged past Texas last year with 138 new recruits to their 133. As CoCoRaHS March Madness nears a close, North Carolina is down by 30 new volunteers.
“We’re currently running behind,” said meteorologist Andrew McKaughan with the National Weather Service forecast office in Newport.
The competition is a light-hearted one, but McKaughan said having volunteer weather observers is important to their work. The information the volunteers collect supplements what the NWS is able to collect.
Volunteers are invited to join the network no matter where they live, but the greatest need is in the more rural areas of the state.
“The more observers there are the better,” McKaughan said. “But it’s definitely where the area is not as populated where the gaps are.”
Observers report rainfall, snowfall, hail and drought information that is shared with the National Weather Service and used by researchers, farmers, emergency management officials and a variety of others.
“An additional benefit of the program to the National Weather Service is the ability to receive timely reports of significant weather, such as hail, intense rainfall and localized flooding, from CoCoRaHS observers that can assist forecasters in issuing and verifying warnings for severe thunderstorms,” said David Glenn, state coordinator for the program and a meteorologist with the NWS office in Newport.
Volunteers may register by going to the program website at cocorahs.org. From there they may obtain an official rain gauge for about $27 plus shipping and also take a simple online training module.
Volunteers submit reports of their observations online, and the information becomes immediately available over the website.
North Carolina CoCoRaHS can also be reached on Facebook and through Twitter @NC_CoCoRaHS.
Jannette Pippin can be reached at 910-382-2557 or jannette.pippin@jdnews.com.