It’s monsoon season here in New Mexico, which means thunderstorms popping up here and there and, one hopes, everywhere around the state.

In my blog stats, I notice that around this time of year I frequently get traffic for people searching for things like “how much rain did Albuquerque get today”. I’m writing this as a sort of permanent archive, hoping that some of you will find it via the Google on days like today.

One of the problems with this question during the summer is the extreme variability of thunderstorm precipitation. You can get dumped on, and a neighbor a few blocks away can get very little. The best way to find out how much rain you got is to get your own rain gauge and join the CoCoRaHS network of volunteers. Info on signing up can be found here.

If you want to see what all the other CoCoRaHS volunteers reported, the site has frequently updated maps. If you click on the map on the bottom, you’ll get a Google map for the state and can zoom in and see the reports for your neighborhood. Albuquerque has a pretty dense network of volunteer observers, so it gives a nice look at the spatial variability of these storms. Lots of CoCoRaHS observers only report once a day in the morning, so it’s best for getting a “how much did it rain yesterday and last night” readout. It’s my favorite.

The National Weather Service reports data for the “official” Albuquerque rain gauge, which is at the airport. Given the spatial variability, this can be disappointing. (But it didn’t rain at my house!)

If you want to watch as the storm is in progress, the Weather Service radar page is great. Click on “1-Hour Total” and “Storm Total” in the left-hand rail to get the radar estimate of how much rain has fallen.