El Salvador Rainfall Data Rescue Project

The Challenge

In November 2009 a mudslide claimed over 200 lives in El Salvador. An IEDRO Team visited the National Meteorological Service (NMHS) of El Salvador two weeks after that tragic event. The Team brought back over 5,000 analog precipitation strip charts from the two observation stations closest to the mudslide area. Unlike other weather records that show precipitation amounts every 6 hours, these charts show rainfall on a minute-by-minute basis. Once these charts have been scanned and the data digitized, the NMHS will finally be able to know the amount and intensity of rainfall that generates these deadly slides and will be able to provide accurate warnings to their people. These charts have been scanned by IEDRO and now await your help to digitize them, thus providing El Salvador with the information they need to save hundreds of lives.

Hurricane Ida from Satellite