It's early February 2025 . . . What is your landscape's current condition? CoCoRaHS Condition Reports

Have you ever submitted a “Condition” report?

Basically it’s a chance for you to give the nation an on-going “what’s the condition of my landscape” overview on a regular basis. Is it very dry? . . very wet? . . . or several steps in between. We have a sliding scale bar covering seven categories: “Severely Dry - Moderately Dry - Mildly Dry - Near Normal - Mildly Wet - Moderately Wet - Severely Wet” that you'll find easy to use. You also have a place to provide a description of how these dry, normal or wet conditions are affecting you, your livelihood, your activities, etc.

Please take a look at our “Condition Monitoring Webpage” and click on the reporting guide. It’s simple to follow and then it’s very easy to file a report. 

During the next couple of days, if you have a free moment, “try filing a condition report”. You’ll be helping out a great many people by doing so and your information will be looked at on a regular basis by the authors of the US Drought Monitor. In fact, if you can file a report once a week on a Saturday or Sunday that would be ideal, but as always feel free to file one whenever you are able.

Thanks for taking the time to read this message and for being part of our precipitation measuring team!

The "Total SWE Monday" Habit . . . Please give it a try!

The National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center utilizes CoCoRaHS reports of precipitation, snowfall, snow depth and the water equivalent of the snow on the ground every day. CoCoRaHS data provide critical "Ground Truth" information that can improve the skill of their products and models. This will improve the accuracy of flood forecasts in the weeks and months ahead. Click here to see how your CoCoRaHS SWE Reports are used by NOHRSC

Their guidance to us has been that if you can only report one day a week it’s best to all report on the same day. Monday was chosen:

"The analysts at NOHRSC prefer a Total Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) observation taken once a week on Monday. The simple reason is that digging cores every day ruins your sample snowfield area (unless you have a big yard or open fields nearby).

A flood of Monday morning SWE reports gives us a better picture of the overall snowpack instead of a few scattered results trickling in throughout the week. Daily total SWE would be great, but let's make "Total SWE Monday" a habit.

(Note: If you have the room, more frequent observations are appreciated, especially when conditions are changing. For areas that only infrequently get snow, there is no need to wait for Monday -- report SWE whenever you have the chance). For instructions on how to take core samples and report the snowpack SWE, please view our on-line training materials on snow: Training Slide Shows or watch the YouTube short animation on: SWE.