I'm a slow starter this morning. It all started when Fred got up around 5:30. I looked out the window and saw the snow and just curled up and went back to sleep. Or at least I tried to. I knew snow was coming and that's why I got my snow board all set up yesterday. This is the first snow I've reported for CoCoRaHS, and I guess I was a little nervous about it because I ended up dreaming about getting the measurement right, I lost my pretty official orange ruler in the snow - which of course in my dream turned out to be way more than I could measure or find my ruler in. I woke up at about eight o'clock and checked to see if my board and depth stick were still in place and saw that everything was ok and it was still snowing lightly.

Actually taking the measurements was no big deal. First I measured the depth which was 2.75 inches. That was a surprise. I think the forecast was for up to two inches, but we all know we live in a snow belt here that includes Walden, Joe's Pond and West Danville. I then got the core sample and melted it as instructed with carefully measured warm water, deducted the amount of water I'd added and came up with a water content of .22 of an inch.

After a bit of fuss getting the figures into the proper places on the report sheet I do electronically, I had done my very first official snow report. Now scientists from NOAA, the National Weather Service, the National Hydrologic Council, Wyoming State Climate Office and Colorado State University where all this volunteering is coordinated, will know that at Joe's Pond we had almost three inches of snow today.

Anyone of those scientists will tell you that measuring snow is anything but an exact science, but apparently when there are lots of people doing it all over the country, it can give them something to work with to make predictions, preparations, follow trends, or whatever. It doesn't matter - for now it's fun for me. I've had a snow stake up for a number of years for my own observation, but this is a bit more complicated and meaningful - I hope.

Fred took pictures early this morning. Some of the snow has already melted off the trees, so it will be gone by evening, I expect. It sure was pretty this morning, though.