- KBR has secured a potential $1.12 billion NOAA contract in support of the National Mesonet Program
- The five-year IDIQ contract will support the acquisition of weather and environmental data from nonfederal observing networks
- The work includes weather station, radar, aircraft and marine observation data services for NOAA’s forecasting mission
KBR has won a potential $1.12 billion contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help the National Weather Service procure data from nonfederal networks covering a range of geographic domains to expand its observing capabilities as part of the National Mesonet Program, or NMP.
NOAA disclosed the award through a notice published Thursday on SAM.gov.
In September, the agency issued a solicitation for the single-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, which has a five-year ordering period.
What Is the National Mesonet Program?
NMP serves as the National Weather Service’s primary program for acquiring data from nonfederal observing networks, also known as mesonets. NOAA says the program began in fiscal year 2009 and has expanded from purchasing surface weather observations to obtaining data from a broad range of observing systems.
According to the statement of work, the program includes surface meteorological networks, aircraft-based observations, commercial weather balloons, commercial radar systems, marine observing platforms and other environmental data sources.
What Is the Scope of the NOAA Contract?
Under the contract, KBR will provide observational data and related services supporting NOAA’s National Mesonet Program.
The statement of work calls for data from a range of commercial and nonfederal observing networks, including surface weather stations that collect wind, temperature, moisture, pressure and precipitation measurements. The contract also covers ground-based remote sensing systems, aircraft-based observations, weather balloon data, marine and oceanic observations from ships and buoys, and data from X-, S- and C-band radar systems. Additional requirements include data from remote locations outside the continental U.S. and emerging observation platforms.
NOAA also requires the contractor to aggregate and deliver observational data from publicly available networks and support data processing, formatting, metadata management, ingest and dissemination services.
The selected vendor will support the delivery of nonfederal weather and environmental data through a commercial cloud-based platform that interfaces with NOAA forecasting and data dissemination systems and conduct individual pilot projects to help NWS evaluate new commercial data streams for use in its forecast and warning missions.
