WERA 1012:
“Managing and Utilizing Precipitation Observations from Volunteer Networks” Annual Conference (In-Person/Hybrid)
June 10-11, 2024
Our annual conference will be held in person and hybrid mode (via ZOOM) on June 10-11, 2024 at the ATMOS Campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. Attendees are encouraged to register by May 1st to get the discounted early rate.
This year’s conference will be held from June 10-11, 2024 and will be avaiilable as a hybrid conference with an in-person meeting or the ability to attend virtually via ZOOM.
For those attending in person, arrival on the evening of Sunday, June 9th is recommended. The conference runs throught the end of the day on Tuesday, June 11th.
WERA 1012’s purpose is to offer a forum where attendees can discuss and strategize how to manage, educate, maintain, and improve volunteer weather observer networks used to collect valuable precipitation data in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, the U.S.Virgin Islands, the Bahamas and Guam. This includes the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Network, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, CoCoRaHS Canada, CoCoRaHS Bahamas, as well as other existing local, regional and state/provincial volunteer networks.
Potential topics for this year's meeting include but are not limited to the following:
NOAA Session
- Updates from NOAA Partners
State of the Networks
- COOP Network update
- PRISM updates
- International update
- Regional CoCoRaHS Meetings (NWS/State Climate Office's)
- NWSFO updates
- CoCoRaHS Website update/mapping
- QC update
- NeRAIN, HiDEN, others
CoCoRaHS Special Projects
- The CoCoRaHS Data Explorer
- New Mobile App
Recruitment/Retention/Engagement
- Communicating with observers (message and media)
- Communicating with County Coordinators
- Tribal Communities
- Strategies for Urban and Rural recruitment/sustainability
- Master Gardeners/Master Naturalists
- Sustaining participation over the long run (case examples)
Other topics
- Gauges
- Drought/Floods
- Usage of CoCo Data
- Forensic Meteorology
Weather/Climate Jeopardy
Please consider attending the conference even if you are in another area of science and would like to learn more about how citizen science networks function.
Finally, please note that the Annual Meeting of the American Association of State Climatologists (AASC) will take place immediately following the WERA Conference at Colorado State University. Consider attending this meeting while in town.
