Section 511(b)(1) and (2) of the Water Resources Development Act of 2020 (division AA of Public Law 116–260) requires the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to establish a pilot program within the National Mesonet Program for the acquisition and use of data generated by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -led initiative. Army Corps of Engineers is augmenting existing mesonet sites in 5 networks in the Upper Missouri River Basin with new soil moisture and snowpack instrumentation and installing new sites to reach a total of 540 sites outfitted with the new instrumentation by the end of fiscal year 2026. To support these efforts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will establish the Soil Moisture and Snowpack Monitoring Pilot Program, which will acquire data that is generated by the network being installed in the Upper Missouri River Basin from 2023 through 2025. The National Weather Service National Mesonet Program supports a public-private partnership of nearly four-dozen mesonet networks operated by the States and the private sector providing hydrometeorological observational data at more than 30,000 sites nationwide.

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Federal Agency: Department of Commerce

Category: Program