Snow observations from your location can be useful to others who may have had snowfall from the same storm. These data are also of interest to NOAA and your snow data will be included in the MADIS data set and distributed to user organizations including the NWS. Before signing-up to do this public service, read snow project description and snow measurement instructions to be sure you understand it.
1. Instructions for Registered CWOP Members
If you are a registered CWOP member, you can sign-up to send in snow data by sending an e-mail to Julie.Singewald@noaa.gov with "Snow Sign-up" in the subject line. Put your 5 character NWS ID as the first line of the body of the message. In the second line, enter "registered" which tells us that we already have your latitude, longitude and elevation in the CWOP database. In the third line, enter "both" to tell us that you will be sending both electronic weather station data and manual snow data. In the fourth line, enter your standard (winter) time zone by name or by the number of hours offset from 00 hours UTC. For example, Mountain Standard Time is -7 hours from 00 hours UTC. In the fifth line, enter "yes" if you change to Daylight time in the summer or "no" if you do not.
Just fill out the form below to create a suitable email message:
Don't forget to send the message that you create.2. Instructions for Non-registered CWOP Members
If you are a non-registered CWOP member, you can sign-up to send in snow data by sending an e-mail to Julie.Singewald@noaa.gov with "Snow Sign-up" in the subject line. Put your 5 character NWS ID as the first line of the body of the message. In the second line, enter "not registered" which tells us that we do not have your latitude and longitude in the CWOP database. If you know your latitude and longitude, enter them (decimal degrees) in the third line of the message. If you don't know them, refer to the paragraph below. In the fourth line, enter either "both" to tell us that you will be sending both electronic weather station data and manual snow data or "manual only" for manual snow reporting only. In the fifth line, enter your standard (winter) time zone by name or by the number of hours offset from 00 hours UTC. For example, Mountain Standard Time is -7 hours from 00 hours UTC. In the sixth line, enter "yes" if you change to Daylight time in the summer or "no" if you do not.
To find the latitude and longitude (and elevation) for your location in the US, click your state and find a nearby CWOP station in the north to south list. Click on that station ID under the "CWOP QC" column and then click on "_____Summary" 5 lines down. You may have to use another nearby station if "_____Summary" is not there. This opens a page that allows viewing a display with several different maps or images. It can be zoomed by clicking on the plus or minus in the upper left and can be recentered by double-clicking where you want the center to be. Zoom out until you can see your location, double -click on it and then zoom in and double-click to get an accurate location. In this way, you can accurately the latitude and longitude for your snow measurement point.
3. Instructions for Non-members of CWOP
To become a CWOP member and obtain a CW designation number (or designator), fill out this CW form and within a few minutes, you will receive an e-mail reply with your assigned number. It will be similar to "CW9999" and the 5 character NWS ID is obtained by simply dropping the "W" to get C9999 or similar as your NWS ID. Then follow the instructions for non-registered CWOP members in item # 2 above.
You will need your elevation in meters. If you don't know your elevation, follow the directions in the last paragraph of item 2 above and select the topographic map. Instructions on how to determine your elevation from a topograph map are available. Be sure and convert the elevation from feet to meters with a 0.3048 multiplication factor.