I sent out a newsletter a couple weeks ago telling you about the firewall problems we were having on the NeRAIN site. That major access problem has apparently been solved by our IT staff. There will still be a few occasional ups and downs but hopefully nothing like we were experiencing. Speaking of downs, there is a planned upgrade that will take place at 1:00 PM today so the site will be down for just a brief (5-10 minutes) period at that time.

New Features for the site

Once you are signed in on the site, you will see a new link left of the “Welcome to the NeRAIN Web Site” on the home page at: http://dnrdata.dnr.ne.gov/NeRAIN/index.asp. The link will say “sign-out!” and will allow you to log out so others using your computer will not have the same access you have to the site. This feature was requested by the Coordinators, since they have access to change much more information than volunteer observers.

Do you record for more than one site?

This is a repeat from last newsletter but it is worth it if you are one of those people that enter data for more than one station. Currently you have to re-log in for each site you monitor and that is sort of a hassle to do. If you are one of those that do manage more than one site, please contact me at rkern@dnr.ne.gov and I’ll set you up to make this much easier to do. Be sure to let me know your StationName (ex. linc002) and the StationNames of the other sites you are responsible for.

Do you need to enter 0.00 if there is no rain?

Weeeeelllll, we would certainly like you to, but you are volunteers so you can help us as much as you are willing. Knowing where it doesn’t rain is as important as knowing where it does rain. We’ve have tried to make it easy to enter those 0.00 entries by providing the “Multiple Zero Readings” button on the “data entry” page. If you haven’t tried that, check it out. All you need to do to fill in multiple zero readings is to click on all the check boxes where you had zero rain and click on the “Add to Report” button. You can go back through June with the form so if you need to enter 0.00 back further than that, let me know.

Thanks again for volunteering for NeRAIN.

Rich Kern
Nebraska Department of Natural Resources
301 Centennial Mall South
P.O. Box 94676
Lincoln, NE 68509-4676
(402) 471-3948
rkern@dnr.ne.gov