LINCOLN- A legislative bill that would have bolstered Nebraska's statewide weather monitoring system and provided funding has been tabled by the Legislature, despite the fact that the current system has been running on an increasingly patchwork budget. The system, formally titled the Nebraska Mesonet, would have received around $1 million over two years in LB401, a bill introduced by Sen. Myron Dorn.

The bill was tabled, according to Sen. Dorn, to allow a committee to form around the subject and perform a survey to assess the system's capacity and identify what it needs to grow in the future. "We could have maybe funded it with general funds this year," said Dorn, "But we also don't want to go down the wrong path and come back three years from now and go, 'Boy, we didn't plan the best'."

Dorn said that the general consensus between his office, the University of Nebraska, and Nebraska's Department of Natural Resources, is to work toward increasing the number of weather monitoring stations across the state and ensure support is reliable, especially in rural areas. Over the past few years, and because of the weather system's fluctuating budget, several stations have had to lay off staff and even close down.

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