County public works officials are recruiting weather watchers to join volunteers recording rain data for the National Weather Service.

Those interested can attend an orientation session at 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24, in the Board of Supervisors chambers at the Civic Center.

Participants will collect weather information from a small rain gauge and report the data online at 7 a.m. daily. Volunteers also may describe the weather situation in their neighborhood, or dispatch “severe weather” reports that get prompt attention at the federal weather base in Monterey.

A handful of Marin volunteers are among 1,237 across the state who participate on the data collection program known as the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network.

National Weather Service forecaster Bob Benjamin called the program essential, saying reports from volunteers on the ground augment other observations as well as satellite and radar programs and enable the weather service to make forecasts and issue advisories including flood, beach and related warnings.

“It is very important,” Benjamin said. “It provides a lot of information that we may not have, because lots of times we’re looking at radar or satellite and making assumptions.”

A weather service colleague, hydrologist Mark Strudley, added that because the mountainous coastal landscape sometimes skews radar, data from observers helps fill the gap.

“You can’t get enough observers,” said volunteer coordinator Debbie Clarkson of Sonoma County, adding the program can literally save lives by alerting federal experts about variations in rainfall. The program to record “microclimate” rainfall was launched in Colorado more than a decade ago after light showers in one neighborhood became an extended downpour just several miles away, triggering deadly flash floods.

Don Engler of Tamalpais Valley is among those interested in signing up as a volunteer. “I should really join,” said the 80-year-old Engler, a retired county flood control official who has collected weather data for years, providing information to the county flood control office as well as the Tamalpais Community Service District. “I’m the Tam Valley weather watcher.”

John Buckley of Fairfax, a technical writer for FirstOnScene, a software program for the fire service, first began collecting rainfall data for the weather service two years ago after his father-in-law gave him a rain gauge at Christmas.

“There are lots of microclimates around the Bay Area,” he said, making neighborhood data important in assessing the overall weather picture.

Children may participate with their parents’ permission, and the program could be a good school project for a student, said Hannah Lee, a county associate civil engineer.

For information about the program, where to get a rain gauge and how to set it up, visit www.cocorahs.org or email Clarkson at canorthbaycocorahs@att.net.