DON'T FREEZE THE TUBE

Snow is on its way and we have already had freezing weather. The FIRST thing to do if you haven't done so already is to bring the inner tube and funnel of your rain gauge inside NOW. If water collects in them and freezes, they will crack and be worthless. The outer tube can handle the winter weather and can be used to help measure snowfall so that is OK to leave out over the winter if you are going to help measure snow. If you are not planning on measuring snow, then it is best to bring that inside also.

MEASURING SNOW

I'll admit that the first year we had NeRAIN running, I wasn't too keen on measuring snow. The thought of crawling around in the snow banks at 7:00 AM when it was still very cold and dark out just didn't seem like the most pleasant thing to do. But I went ahead and did it anyway and found out it really wasn't bad after all. Although the white stuff has a tendency to stick around long after the event, we really don't have that many snow days in Nebraska so taking care of that on the few days it does snow and then tracking how much hangs around isn't such a big hassle. I encourage you to at least give it a try and I think you will see what I mean. However, if you don't feel surefooted walking in the snow, don't take a chance on falling. We'll miss your data but it is not worth risking injury.

HOW TO MEASURE SNOW

If you have forgotten or never knew, there are some instructions on how to measure snow on the NeRAIN website at http://dnrdata.dnr.ne.gov/NeRAIN/docs/snow.asp. Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) in Fort Collins, Colorado helped NeRAIN get stared a couple of years ago. The person responsible for the CoCoRaHS project, Nolan Doesken, is the national expert on snow measurement and there is more information on measuring snow on their website. You can find the link to their site at the bottom of our website or go directly by using this link: http://www.cocorahs.org/. If you still have questions after looking over this information, be sure to ask.

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