Good morning dedicated CoCoRaHS observers,
The first thing I would like to write to you this morning is to express how much our scientific and civic communities appreciate the volunteer work you do to provide precipitation data for northern and central New Mexico. As you know, this data is used to support local agriculture, hydrologists in spring run-off forecasting, drought monitoring and drought forecasting, municipal water resource planning, wildlife conservation, fire weather monitoring and forecasting, forestry, private and public weather forecasting and a host of other organizations and groups. This data improves the quality of our lives and allows us to make informed decisions on issues critical to our well being. Thank you for being a part of the CoCoRaHS network.
I would like to wish you a happy spring. This morning, I took a look at monthly precipitation for March 2018 and March 2019. Overall, there was a large difference in the amount of precipitation reported when comparing March 2018 to March 2019. But, as is often the issue with broad generalizations about data, while most of the comparisons are impressive, there are a few comparisons which do not vary by much. These important differences are evidence of the complexity of variations of precipitation over a given geographical area and a given time period. So here is a sampling of this data:
Station March 2018 March 2019
Albuquerque Sunport 0.18 inches 0.61 inches
Clayton Municipal Airpark 0.07 inches 2.28 inches
Roswell International Air Center Airport 0.01 inches 0.42 inches
*** The above data is from automated surface observing systems, and the data below is from a sampling of CoCoRaHS observers by county ***
Station March 2018 March 2019
Observer in Bernalillo County 0.29 inches 0.82 inches
Observer in Catron County 0.89 inches 1.15 inches
Observer in Chaves County 0.04 inches 0.60 inches
Observer in Cibola County 0.25 inches 0.14 inches
Observer in Colfax County 0.74 inches 4.66 inches
Observer in Curry County 0.04 inches 1.19 inches
Observer in De Baca County Trace 0.45 inches
Observer in Guadalupe County 0.15 inches 0.43 inches
Observer in Harding County Not A Member 2.12 inches
Observer in Lincoln County 0.23 inches 0.35 inches
Observer in Los Alamos County 0.51 inches 3.29 inches
Observer in McKinley County 1.07 inches 1.72 inches
Observer in Mora County 0.16 inches 2.43 inches
Observer in Quay County 0.10 inches 0.42 inches
Observer in Rio Arriba County 0.45 inches 1.87 inches
Observer in Roosevelt County 0.09 inches 0.67 inches
Observer in Sandoval County 0.91 inches 0.99 inches
Observer in San Juan County 0.33 inches 2.46 inches
Observer in San Miguel County 0.17 inches 1.19 inches
Observer in Santa Fe County 0.31 inches 1.36 inches
Observer in Socorro County 0.34 inches 0.29 inches
Observer in Taos County 0.63 inches 2.43 inches
Observer in Torrance County 0.41 inches 1.03 inches
Observer in Union County 0.04 inches 1.90 inches
Observer in Valencia County 0.24 inches 0.37 inches
Some obvious hypotheses arise from the data, such as; it appears that northern New Mexico received a lot more precipitation in March of 2019 compared to March of 2018, and that most of northern and central New Mexico received more precipitation in March of 2019. However, the contradictions of those hypotheses and other subtleties in this sampling provide more nuance and would lead someone to investigate more closely. In other words, the more data, the more likely that a better conclusion can be made and better decisions can be made from the data. I would also like to recognize that we have only one active observer in Harding County and thank them for their work.
That leads me to my last thought. This year's March Madness has added 96 new CoCoRaHS members in New Mexico! We are significantly ahead in the per capita count nationwide! Here are the top-5 raw counts and per capita counts, as of March 29th at 9:30 AM MDT:
Traditional Count Top Five
153 | South Carolina
|
96
| New Mexico
|
84
| Minnesota
|
81
| Florida
|
58 | Wisconsin
|
Per Capita* Count Top Five 46.62 | New Mexico
|
33.08 | South Carolina
|
19.52
| Wyoming
|
15.84 | Minnesota |
14.87
| North Dakota
|
Enjoy the weekend,
Best regards,
Roger Smith