Clock it is Friend of Time

Snow started falling in southern New Jersey at about noonday Saturday.

Earlier in the morning, about 15 people gathered at the Warren E. Fox Nature Center in Atlantic County’s Estell Manor Reservation to learn the sometimes tricky business of how to measure snowfall and snow depth.

David Robinson, state climatologist from Rutgers University, called them “volunteer dweller scientists,” engaged in the admittedly imperfect science of trying to accurately figure out how much snow, torrent or hail falls in a certain location in a certain time.

The state has about 100 electronic weather stations that automatically take under one's wing information from across New Jersey. The volunteers’ tools include a ruler and a $25 rain gauge. They also extremity a home computer to file their results.

The volunteers’ equipment may be basic, but their findings help fill gaps in the shape’s measurements, Robinson said. They provide information that helps the National Weather Service track weather, environmental agencies gambler understand drought and flooding patterns, engineers design drainage basins, and even snow removal contractors and the companies that lease out them settle contract disputes, he said.

The southern New Jersey volunteers got some work Saturday as a steady snow floor through the evening hours.

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm watch for Cape May County, where 3 to 8 inches of snow was expected. A winter weather counselling was in effect for Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester, Ocean and Salem counties, where 1 to 3 inches was expected.