P.E.I. weather watchers wanted: Grassroots network needs help

Prince Edward Islanders love to talk about the weather, but a grassroots network of weather watchers is hoping some Islanders will also be willing to track daily precipitation across the province.

The group is called the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS).The network has been operating on P.E.I. for a couple of years, but doesn't have anyone reporting from the eastern or western ends of the Island.

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"We need more, especially down in the eastern end of the Island where weather can be quite different than it is here in Charlottetown," said Bill Jameson, who was asked to organize CoCoRaHS volunteers on P.E.I. because of his extensive background in meteorology.

He has worked in the air control tower at the Charlottetown airport since 1991 and is one of the official weather observers for Nav Canada on P.E.I.

"Also up west, where we could be getting rain down here in Charlottetown but we all know west of Summerside it could be snow," added Jameson.

"We don't have any volunteers up there so we don't know what's actually fallen up that way."

'That's a big gap in our records'

That concerns Don Jardine of the UPEI Climate Research Lab.

"That's a big gap in our records because we get a lot of our precipitation in a year from snow," said Jardine.

"It's important for farmers, and for the Department of Transportation when they're awarding snow contracts," he said.

Daily measurements

The CoCoRaHS volunteers use a professional quality precipitation gauge, that has been properly calibrated.

In the summer, they measure the rain in the gauge.

In the winter, the measuring can take longer. The volunteers melt down the snow in the gauge for the water equivalent. They also use a snow ruler, taking multiple measurements to get an average of the snow on the ground.

Every Monday, the volunteers take a core sample of the snow and melt it down. That helps predict how much water will melt into the water table in the spring.

"It's a fairly big commitment," said Jameson. "I went out the other day in the rain, it was pretty cold, but it's what we signed up for."

Jameson says volunteers don't need to have a weather background, but do need to be accurate.

"If you're going to do it, you have to make a determined effort to stay on top of it," said Jameson. "People are using this data."

More help wanted

Rick Fleetwood would also like to see more precipitation watchers on P.E.I.  He's with Environment Climate Change Canada in Fredericton, N.B.

There are nine weather stations across P.E.I. and Fleetwood says it's unlikely the Island will be getting more.

"Weather stations are quite expensive and generally the network we have right now fills the basic need," said Fleetwood.

"It's when we get an intense storm or we're looking for some supplemental information in an area where there may not be much population that's where CoCoRaHS really does fill in," he said.

Climate change will make more weather observers even more vital, says Fleetwod.

"With climate change generally some of the trends we're seeing is more frequent heavy precipitation and also some of the events are getting more extreme so higher precipitation amounts which we expect to increase in the future," he said.

"Especially with precipitation it can be quite localized and very heavy in one area and not so heavy elsewhere so having additional observations is important."

Fleetwood points to the recent Thanksgiving weekend storm, with extensive flooding in Cape Breton and Newfoundland and Labrador. Data from the CoCoRaHS network was used to support claims for disaster financial assistance.

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