“I’m really surprised so many people had reports today,” says the National Weather Service meteorologist based in Boulder, Colorado. Such life-saving weather data are vital as the United States suffered 28 climate and weather disasters whose costs exceeded $1 billion each—the most such events ever recorded in a year. The consistency and reliability of the data are helping improve National Weather Service precipitation predictions, she adds. They install a National Weather Service–approved cylindrical plastic rain gauge, from which they measure precipitation and record the data online. These citizens collect temperature and precipitation data daily from National Weather Service equipment, and then report it electronically to the service.