What are cooperative weather observers?
While the federal government operates several hundred full- and part-time weather stations in the United States, given the size of the nation, many more stations are needed to fully define our weather and climate. The number of points is greatly expanded by the nation’s team of cooperative weather observers. These volunteers take vital temperature, rainfall, and snow fall measurements on a daily basis at almost 10,000 sites across the nation. Their instruments are checked by the National Weather Service. Over five million cooperative reports are collected and assembled each year at the National Climatic Data Center.
Many of these cooperative stations remain within the same families for generations. Colorado has eleven cooperative weather observer stations that have been in operation for 100 years or more. Such continuous strings of weather data taken in the same placed are invaluable in assessing whether or not global and regional climate is in fact changing with time. The earliest known such weather records in America were kept by a clergyman at Swedes’ Fort, near Wilmington, Delaware, in 1644 and 1645.
Weather observing is a major hobby in the United States. Two publications that would be of interest to hobbyists are the American Weather Observer (401 Whitney Blvd, Belvidere, Illinois, 61008-3772; 815/544-9811; awowx@aol.com) and Weather-wise magazine (published by Heldreff Publishers, Washington, D.C.; call 1-800-365-9753 to place a subscription).