The first RainGain NL National Observers Group meeting took place on 13 March 2012. Almost 30 people attended the meeting, including specialists, practitioners, consultants, academics and local government policy-makers. The meeting started with a general introduction of the project and of the Rotterdam pilot site. The second part of the meeting consisted of two parallel sessions, where the following topics were discussed: use of rainfall data in flood modelling and data use after the end of the project. The participants showed a lot of interest in the project and were very creative in thinking about possible applications of the high resolution rainfall data. The discussions provided valuable information and ideas that will be used in the RainGain project.