 Every day, before leaving the house, we check the weather forecast. What will it bring today? Will it rain or snow? Will it be sunny or cloudy? Windy or calm? With this information, you can decide to go to work by bike, take the car, or take a bus. You can also decide whether or not to take a coat or an umbrella. For meteorologists, trying to forecast the amount, location, and type of precipitation that will fall in your area is a challenge, especially in mountainous regions. The models to forecast the weather are complex. There are many things that we have to identify that affect whether we'll have snow, rain, or hail over mountains. For example, we need to understand if the environmental conditions like the wind, the temperature, the humidity are just right to form clouds over the mountains. Once we have clouds over the mountains, we need to know what is happening inside the clouds. Are there water droplets bumping into each other and growing, or are they freezing into ice crystals? If enough water droplets grow and fall out of the cloud as precipitation, where will they fall and as what type? Will they melt or evaporate before reaching your head? As a scientist, I study how each parameter affects the weather forecast and compare observations with what the computer models predicted would happen. For example, one forecast could say the winds near the mountains will be fast and blow the precipitation far away, but a different forecast could say the winds will be slower and the precipitation will fall nearby. If our computational models aren't sure how fast the winds will be, then our forecast will be very different depending on where you are. We need more observations over regional mountains to better understand these model parameters and provide a more accurate weather forecast. With more information about the types and amount of precipitation that occur in your region, we can improve computational models which can then improve weather forecasts. You can help meteorologists by providing cloud observations through the GLOBE app, joining the COCRAS network to provide precipitation observations or by becoming a National Weather Service trained storm spotter. The next time you see the weather forecast in news, you can say, I helped improve the weather forecast for my community.