READS
BE A STORM MONITOR !!!
During one of those nice monsoon storms did you ever want to know just how much rain is falling on your property? Since this is New Mexico, haven't you wondered why it appears to be raining cats and dogs just on the other side of the street and you aren't getting anything? Want to know how much the other guy is getting? Why not join the READS program sponsored by SSCAFCA.
What does it take?
Just pick up the phone and give Mr. Jim Service a call (892-RAIN) and he will guide you through this easy process.What do I need?
Just some place secure to set the rain gauge that is away from any tall structures so it will not be shaded.What does it cost?
Absolutely nothing. SSCAFCA provides the rain gauge, the labor, the monitoring cards and anything else that is required.What is the benefit?
You will know for sure want amount of precipitation falls on your property plus you get to belong to a select group, THE STORM MONITORS, which will share their information on an annual basis.RAINFALL EVENT AND DATA SYSTEM (READS)
BACKGROUND
In March of 2001, the Southern Sandoval County Arroyo Flood Control Authority (SSCAFCA) was able to obtain federal funds under the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program to implement a rainfall event recording system within its jurisdiction. Residents and municipalities within SSCAFCA's jurisdiction were invited to participate in the program either by individually volunteering to be a "Storm Monitor," or providing protected space to install a data logging rain gauge. The collection of data began in earnest in March of 2002 with twenty-one volunteer storm monitors consistently providing monthly data cards and readings being taken from six calibrated data logging rain gauge stations. Forty-four volunteers currently collect precipitation data for SSCAFCA. On the map below, red triangles show the distribution of storm monitors throughout SSCAFCA's jurisdiction. Blue triangles mark the locations of SSCAFCA's six data logging rain gages. Three additional data logging rain gages were installed in 2007 as a result of a cooperative agreement between SSCAFCA and the USGS (green triangles).
click on the map to enlarge
DATA
The data collected by our volunteers allows us to determine how many inches it rained each day at the location of each gage. With the aid of advanced GIS software, the data from many locations can be interpolated in order to "map storms". The map on the right shows lines of equal precipitation or isohyets, the result of a storm that occurred on July 8, 2006. The storm is remarkable for two different reasons:
- At the center of the storm (dark brown), located at the intersection of highway NM 528 and Corrales Road, more than two inches of rain were recorded. In a region where the average annual rainfall is less than ten inches, two inches in one day is a very large amount.
- The area with more than one inch of rainfall only has a diameter of approximately five miles. This indicates how much our weather differs on a local scale and why the READS program is so important to us: we need many monitoring stations to account for large local differences.
The chart on the left shows how precipitation in the past two years compares to the long term average. The red line represents the thirty year average for our region, obtained from the Western Regional Climate Center (http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/).
In 2007, precipitation was fairly close to the average with slightly more than average precipitation in the spring and dryer conditions in the summer and fall. The year 2006 stands out with more than twice the average rainfall amounts during the summer months.
READS Precipitation Summary Card:
Either fill out the online form below, or download the card to print, fill out and manually submit to SSCAFCA
