Now is your chance to potentially be a part of local TV weather forecasts.

The Office of the Washington State Climatologist (OWSC) is seeking volunteers from around the state to take daily rainfall measurements in their backyards and report them to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS).

It is the first year that the state office is challenging their Oregon counterpart to see who can get the most volunteers enlisted in the soggy statistics.

The state climatologist office, which is at the University of Washington, has about 350 volunteer active observers across the state.

“Daily reports are coming in at a little less than that recently because we’ve had an extremely dry past two months, but we expect our volunteers to start reporting precipitation again once rain returns,” said Karin Bumbaco, the state CoCoRaHS coordinator at the university office.Although their names aren’t cited during broadcasts, frequently local TV stations use the reports based on data collected by volunteers.”

The ability of observers to send significant weather reports directly to meteorologists at the National Weather Service during heavy rain episodes is especially important,” said Jeff Michalski, the Western Washington Regional CoCoRaHS coordinator at the National Weather Service Forecasting Office in Seattle.Volunteers are assigned a “station name and number” and their latitude and longitude are known, but their names are kept private.

“So, on TV an observation will just be referred to as, “southern Snohomish County,” for example,” Bumbaco said.

To participate in the program, observers must purchase a standard 4-inch diameter rain gauge for about $30 and either attend an in-person training session or view online training material.

“Washington and Oregon have very similar climates, and we decided to hold our own competition in preparation for the wet season, and to throw some football references in for fun,” Bumbaco said.

For more information, click here.