A $48 million project will fund climate monitoring stations across the Upper Missouri River Basin in five states, including Wyoming.
University of Wyoming Professor of Water Resources, Ginger Paige, heads the Wyoming part of the project. She said the project will monitor the plains.
"The overall goal is to establish a really, fairly dense network of met stations, or climate monitoring stations, across the Upper Missouri Basin at elevations at about 5,500 feet and below," said Paige.
Each climate station will measure wind, temperature and moisture. Paige said flooding in the past has come from moisture in the plains.
"We don't actually have a lot of climate data for those areas," she said. "The idea is all these data will be used to help inform prediction models for streamflow, flooding, drought in the Upper Missouri River Basin."
The project will also help the Army Corps of Engineers manage dams downstream.
Have a question about this story? Please contact the reporter, Ashley Piccone, at apiccone@uwyo.edu.