The Superior Express -

Since the 1980s the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has maintained the Guide Rock automated weather observation station near the Nuckolls and Webster county line. It is part of a statewide weather observation system line. It is one of many the university proposed to construct in 1981. Now the future of the Guide Rock station is in doubt. Unless a new funding source is found, the university indicates it will be shut down.

It won’t be the first, seven of the university’s stations have already been turned off along with several operated by other agencies. It is one of only two stations in the southern tier of Nebraska counties.

The station is but one of dozens across the state that monitor humidity, air temperature, soil temperature and moisture, precipitation, wind speed and direction, and barometric pressure. The information the weather stations gather is then used by scientists, consumers and producers. The observations are reported hourly as opposed to the National Weather Service’s cooperative observers who take daily observations.

Supporters of the network say it is even more important now than when it was first proposed because of suspected climate change.

While more stations were built, the annual average of running stations has been 70. The historical maximum number of stations maintained by UNL and other groups was 81. This week there are less than 55 active stations.

When asked about the mesonet network, Ken Herz, a Lawrence area farmer and former officer with the Nebraska Cattlemen, was quoted by the Omaha World-Herald on Monday as being frustrated. “I do not understand why we are having this conversation at all in Nebraska,” Herz said. “If people understood what the (weather network) means, they would be clamoring for support for the system.”

At the request of the cattlemen’s group and Farm Bureau, Nebraska State Senators, Myron Dorn and Tom Brandt are co-sponsoring Legislative Bill 401 which, if adopted, will provide $550,000 in emergency funding for the network in each of the next two years.

The university has not included the network among its legislative priorities.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is establishing a snowpack and groundwater monitoring network in the upper Missouri River Basin and is contracting with the UNL to install 35 stations in northern Nebraska. While paying to install the stations, the corps has promised funding for only one year.

The Nebraska network was one of the first in the nation.