I received a message from Jason Shafer, coordinator of this area's CoCoRaHS program, updating me on upcoming projects that we/I might be involved with: 

Hi, Jane -
I wanted to personally thank you for your consistent precipitation reporting - you are a Super CoCoRaHS observer. We may be in touch about setting up portable ice thickness instrumentation for this winter season (we are working on prototypes now).


Also, as part of our research we are generating probabilistic precipitation forecasts at your location; if this is something you might be interested in seeing, please let me know. Keep up the great work!

      I have responded, letting Jason know I'd be interested in knowing more about both initiatives. 
     In the meantime, it's been raining again, and I measured .32 in. of water in my measuring tube.  We've had well over an inch of rain already in November.  Added to the almost 9 inches we had last month, we're getting pretty soggy.  
     It's nearly time for me to change over to measuring snow instead of rain - and that's a little more demanding.  Rather than wade through snow, I switch my measuring apparatus to the deck.  It isn't ideal - a little close to the house, but way better than trying to keep it shoveled out elsewhere.  I think the measurements are pretty close, and we all know that measuring snow is not an exact science.  Well, probably Prof. Shafer would disagree with that, but for most of us CoCoRaHS reporters, it's not rocket science.
     It's quite warm this morning - I'm seeing 54 degrees on the thermometers - different sides of the house, different types of thermometers.  Usually get different readings, but it's pretty uniform this morning.  Dark and dreary, and the rain has subsided, at least for the moment.  It's nice to have it mild, but the forecast is for the sky to clear and temperatures to drop - of course.
     If anyone, anywhere, reading this would like to join CoCoRaHS and record precipitation where you live, they are always looking for more people to participate.  Check it out and get in touch if you are interested.  It's easy to do - not much to learn, and the equipment doesn't cost much at all - maybe $25-$30 to get started, and that's it.  Unless you break something, of course, and need to replace it.  That happened to me a few years ago (I've been doing this since 2009), but even then, it's been interesting and I hope to continue.  Some below-zero mornings it's been a little hard to get out there and shovel my way to the collection tube, but I get the deck cleared of snow after I've taken measurements, and it gets me outside every day, at least for a few minutes. 
     The first years I did this, I had the collection tube sitting the prescribed distance from the house, and by February or so, I was using snowshoes to get to it. The banks around the driveway were so high it was hard to climb up - and way too much heavy snow to shovel through.  That was when I decided to take a more sensible approach and move the measuring tube to the deck.  I also used to measure the total depth of snow every couple of weeks.  That didn't go well when there was more than three feet on the ground.  We are also asked to take a core sample - and that was really difficult.  The measuring tube is only about 14 inches, so it has to be done in segments - and I always ended up having to dig down to the ground beside the tube in order to get something under to get it up with the snow still in it - the snow would just stay in a column and my tube would come up empty.  Then there's the melting part - and that takes time and patience when there's that much snow to deal with.  Still, I've enjoyed it.  I don't know if I'll take core samples this year or not - depends on the weather and how nimble I feel!  That's the really nice part of doing this - nobody minds if you miss a day or don't do the really troublesome stuff.  It's not something one needs to risk live and limb for.