​Wolf Creek Ranch

I've always enjoyed the weather and observed it, but who doesn't?  When I was a kid about 5 years old I would lie behind the front screen door on our home in Austin and watch the thunderstorms.  I really never did serious weather watching until I moved to WCR in 2007.

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Cocorahs ( https://www.cocorahs.org/ ) was organized a few years before that and when I joined the group I was the third person in Burnet Co. to begin reporting rainfall on a daily basis.

 

I also became interested in doing some public service with Ham radio so I joined the local ARES group (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) which helps out with communications during any local disaster events (fires, tornadoes, etc.).  As practice for such communications, the group also supports communication for such events as bicycle races, MS 150, the Buffalo Bayou canoe race, and various runs such as the one coming up in Bandera in January.  We also work with the National Weather Service and take their Weather Watch courses.

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There is a local network of folks who meet at least weekly on the air on a local VHF FM repeater and in the event of an issue we call the net as necessary.  We work with the local Emergency Coordinators in Llano, Burnet and Blanco Counties.  The club also has a communications trailer we can take anywhere.

 

Cocorahs is mainly interested in getting a daily distributed measure of rainfall nationally so they provide a highly accurate 11 inch rain gauge for a price (I think about $35) to their monitors.  On their reporting page, they provide a free-form area and I fill in with my estimates of wind speed and direction and local temperature.

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-L. Kinard 2020-10-08