Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) introduced bipartisan legislation to strengthen the collection of weather and soil moisture data and improve the accuracy of extreme weather warnings and agriculture forecasts.
“The mesonet and soil moisture monitoring probes are crucial tools for Kansans. Weather affects everything on the farm, and a deeper understanding of what’s happening above and below the ground provides farmers more certainty when making crop decisions,” said Senator Marshall. “Better weather data collection for Kansas also helps us predict wildfires and tornadoes before they arrive, which has the potential to save lives in cases of extreme weather. I’m proud to introduce this important, bipartisan legislation.”
“For Hawai‘i and other states vulnerable to floods, droughts, and severe weather, better data means better forecasts, better prepared communities, and faster emergency response times,” said Senator Schatz. “This same data also helps farmers and ranchers navigate droughts.”
The Improving Flood and Agricultural Forecasts Act of 2025 codifies and expands the National Mesonet Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and updates other programs that are crucial to Kansans, such as the National Drought Information System and the Soil Moisture Monitoring Network.
You may click HERE to read the full bill text.
BACKGROUND:
- Mesonets are weather observation data tools that observe and track mesoscale weather events, and they are crucial for collecting hyperlocal meteorological data, such as soil moisture and stream gauges, to better forecast weather, flood, fire, and agricultural impacts.
- Improving the National Mesonet Program and outlining its objectives through this bill would give NOAA authority to address critical gaps in weather data and forecasting.
