NOAA announced on September 1 that it has awarded a contract to KBR Wyle Services, LLC to expand the National Mesonet Program, a network that delivers weather observations used for forecasting and warnings across the United States. The National Mesonet Program was created to gather surface and upper atmospheric data from state-run networks and has grown to include information on soil moisture, temperature, wave heights, ocean currents and other environmental variables. Under the new agreement, KBR will coordinate with roughly 70 private industry partners to provide data recording, collection, aggregation, ingestion and processing for use in National Weather Service models. The contract builds on an existing partnership and adds access to commercial observations from ground stations, balloons, drones, buoys, aircraft, radars and other sources. The arrangement is intended to streamline data procurement, reduce redundancy, and place all observations under a single processing framework, which officials say will improve forecast accuracy and support the agency's goal of leading in numerical weather prediction. Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, said the agreement simplifies the process that turns raw data into forecasts that Americans rely on. Curtis Marshall, Ph.D., director of the Commercial Observations Program, added that the contract will provide access to advanced commercial observations that expand the reach of the agency’s observing systems. The expanded Mesonet network is expected to enhance situational awareness and short-term weather predictions, though the full impact on forecast models will be evaluated as data integration proceeds.