How you can help the National Weather Service gather vital weather information in Central Texas

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- KXAN has, for years, been the beneficiary of loyal viewers who provide various kinds of weather information, especially during severe weather. They email pictures and videos when its hails, rains and snows. Some provide pictures of their rain gauges letting us see how much rain has accumulated in their yards.

It's not just confined to wet and stormy weather, but also nice weather days that feature pretty sunrises and sunsets. No matter what the weather may be, they always come through.

The National Weather Service office in New Braunfels — the one that handles weather duties for eleven counties in the Austin area — would appreciate some of our viewers to assist them with similar ground-truth reports. Volunteers across the state are part of the COCORAHS network. It stands for Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network.

Paul Yura, the Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service, says they have several volunteers who make their reports through COCORAHS. He calls it "citizen science" where people report weather information to people who can use and need it.

The COCORAHS weather observers who provide 24-hour rain totals make it easier for weather service meteorologists to see what impacts the rain has had on the drought and how much water has made it into the creeks and lakes, among other needed information.

There are many weather observers in the Austin metro area and other highly-populated urban locales. It's the outlying areas where more volunteer weather observers are needed — less-populated areas in the rural communities.

Volunteers report every day whether there is rain measured or not. Yura says even a report of no rain is still data that's needed.

It's easy to join COCORAHS. The one thing they do ask is that you purchase one of their rain gauges.