About the Tracker & Scraper Methodology
The Boulder Precipitation Tracker (BoulderPrecip.com) is an independent, open-source visualization tool designed to convert historical and active climate datasets into interactive charts. Sourced from public domain records, the platform tracks rainfall and snowfall in Boulder, Colorado.
1. Data Citations
All raw datasets displayed or referenced on this website are published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Physical Sciences Laboratory.
The exact public records parsed monthly by our software pipeline can be reviewed at the following NOAA web repositories:
- Precipitation baseline: NOAA PSL Boulder Monthly Precipitation Table
- Snowfall baseline: NOAA PSL Boulder Snowfall & Temperature Record
Disclaimer: The Boulder Precipitation Tracker is an independent project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by NOAA, the National Weather Service, or any federal agency. All climatology data remains in the public domain.
2. Architecture
This portal utilizes a Serverless Jamstack model rather than reading from a live database on page load:
-99.9 placeholders), converts trace amounts, and computes cumulative metrics.
3. Meteorological Boundaries
To present accurate climatological statistics, our tracker differentiates between standard calendar years, water years, and snow seasons:
- Calendar Year: Accumulation tracked from January 1 to December 31.
- Water Year: October 1 to September 30. The standard meteorological unit used by hydrologists to track groundwater recharge and spring snowmelt.
- Snow Season: July 1 to June 30. This boundary ensures that early autumn and late-season spring storms are grouped within a single continuous winter cycle.
4. Open Source
The source code for the scraper and frontend is fully open source. For developer inquiries or bug reports, visit our Contact Page.