State Climatologist Highlights $21 Million Montana Mesonet

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The KGVO Talk Back audience was privileged to have two of the state’s finest scientific minds in the studio on Wednesday, as UM's Dr. Peter Kolb hosted Dr. Kelsey Jencso, Montana’s State Climatologist, to discuss a variety of topics dealing with climate and agriculture.

During the conversation, Dr. Jencso introduced his brainchild, the Montana Mesonet, as part of the Montana Climate Office.

Dr. Peter Kolb Invited Dr. Kelsey Jencso to the Talk Back Program

“I wanted to talk about the Montana Mesonet,” began Dr. Jencso. “That's a fancy way of saying a really dense weather, soil moisture, and snowpack observing network that we are installing across the state of Montana, and I have to give a shout-out to my staff. They're the ones doing this. It's a massive environmental construction project.”

He described the functions of the Montana Mesonet.

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Dr. Jencso Introduced His Brainchild which he Called the Montana Mesonet

“These stations measure relative humidity, temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and direction,” he said. “We have soil pits where we've dug down to 40 inches deep, and we have soil moisture sensors at five different depths, so we actually see that reservoir of moisture that exists in our rain-fed environments. So it’s really important for agricultural monitoring and drought monitoring.”

Dr. Jencso explained how the network has grown.

“We received a large grant from the Department of Defense in response to the upper Missouri River Basin floods in 2011, with catastrophic flooding from Montana into North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska,” he said. “It actually flooded the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in Nebraska, and so as a result of that, Senators Thune and Rounds of South Dakota funded this five-state network and its growth.”

He said the funding quickly grew to over $21 million.

Dr. Jencso said The Defense Department Added $21 Million in Funding

“We started with about $80,000 from the Montana Research and Economic Development Initiative in 2016,” he said. “After that, through word of mouth, lots of private landowners saw the value in this, especially ag (agriculture) producers across central and eastern Montana, and we provided a pretty substantial cost discount through partnerships with the weather instrumentation vendors. With that proof of concept, the Department of Defense and Army Corps of Engineers, as part of this larger project across five states, supported this with a $21 million contract.”

Click here to listen to the entire two hour Talk Back conversation with Dr. Kolb and Dr. Jencso.