Nebraska is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwest; and Wyoming to the west. It is the only triply landlocked U.S. state.
The Great Plains, sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland, located in the interior of North America. It lies west of the Mississippi River tallgrass prairie in the United States and east of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. and Canada.
The Ogallala Aquifer is a shallow water table aquifer surrounded by sand, silt, clay, and gravel located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. One of the world's largest aquifers, it underlies an area of approximately 174,000 sq mi (450,000 km2) in portions of eight states. It was named in 1898 by geologist N. H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. The aquifer is part of the High Plains Aquifer System, and resides in the Ogallala Formation, which is the principal geologic unit underlying 80% of the High Plains.
The following table lists the highest and lowest temperatures recorded in the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the 5 inhabited U.S. territories during the past two centuries, in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. If two dates have the same temperature record, only the most recent date is shown.
The United States National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), previously known as the National Weather Records Center (NWRC), in Asheville, North Carolina, was the world's largest active archive of weather data. Starting as a tabulation unit in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1934, the climate records were transferred to Asheville in 1951, becoming named the National Weather Records Center (NWRC). It was later renamed the National Climatic Data Center, with relocation occurring in 1993. In 2015, it was merged with the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) and the National Oceanic Data Center (NODC) into the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).
The Kansas Geological Survey (KGS), a research and service division of the University of Kansas, is charged by statute with studying and providing information on the geologic resources of Kansas. The KGS has no regulatory authority and does not take positions on natural resource issues.
The High Plains are a subregion of the Great Plains mostly in the Western United States, but also partly in the Midwest states of Nebraska, Kansas, and South Dakota, generally encompassing the western part of the Great Plains before the region reaches the Rocky Mountains. The High Plains are located in eastern Montana, southeastern Wyoming, southwestern South Dakota, western Nebraska, eastern Colorado, western Kansas, eastern New Mexico, western Oklahoma, and to just south of the Texas Panhandle. The southern region of the Western High Plains ecology region contains the geological formation known as Llano Estacado which can be seen from a short distance or on satellite maps. From east to west, the High Plains rise in elevation from around 1,800 feet (550 m) to over 7,000 feet (2,100 m).
High Plains Journal is a regional weekly agricultural news publications published in Dodge City, Kansas with a core circulation reaching twelve states in the Great Plains and Midwest region. As of 2018, it had 42,000 subscribers.
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a large facility program operated by Battelle Memorial Institute and funded by the National Science Foundation. In full operation since 2019, NEON gathers and provides long-term, standardized data on ecological responses of the biosphere to changes in land use and climate, and on feedback with the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. NEON is a continental-scale research platform for understanding how and why our ecosystems are changing.
The tornado outbreak of March 28–31, 2007, also known as the Late-March 2007 tornado outbreak, was a tornado outbreak that took place across the central United States. It developed in the High Plains from South Dakota to central Texas on March 28, 2007, which produced most of the tornadoes. Several more tornadoes were reported the next three days before the system weakened on March 31. It affected western Nebraska, western Kansas, extreme eastern Colorado, and much of Oklahoma, and Texas. It was the second major outbreak of 2007, four weeks after an outbreak farther east. The outbreak produced 80 confirmed tornadoes, with five deaths and extensive damage being reported. In addition to the tornadoes, widespread hail as large as softballs and destructive straight-line winds as strong as 90 mph (140 km/h) were reported.
The Dakota is a sedimentary geologic unit name of formation and group rank composed of sandstones, mudstones, clays, and shales deposited in the Mid-Cretaceous opening of the Western Interior Seaway. The usage of the name Dakota for this particular Albian-Cenomanian strata is exceptionally widespread; from British Columbia and Alberta to Montana and Wisconsin to Colorado and Kansas to Utah and Arizona. It is famous for producing massive colorful rock formations in the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains of the United States, and for preserving both dinosaur footprints and early deciduous tree leaves.
The tornado outbreak sequence of May 5–10, 2015 was a six-day outbreak of tornado activity that affected the Great Plains of the United States in early May 2015. On May 6, strong tornadoes impacted the Oklahoma City area, along with rural parts of Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Nebraska. The outbreak coincided with major flooding, with large amounts of rain falling in parts of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The National Weather Service forecast office in Norman, Oklahoma issued a "flash flood emergency" for Oklahoma City following record-breaking rainfall that occurred in the area that evening. The outbreak sequence resulted in five tornado-related deaths, along with two flood-related deaths. A total of 127 tornadoes were confirmed and rated as a result of this outbreak sequence.
The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), an agency of the United States government, manages one of the world's largest archives of atmospheric, coastal, geophysical, and oceanic data, containing information that ranges from the surface of the sun to Earth's core, and from ancient tree ring and ice core records to near-real-time satellite images.
A deadly and destructive outbreak sequence of 23 tornadoes struck parts of the Great Plains and the Great Lakes in late-July 1957. At least seven significant tornadoes (F2+) touched down during the outbreak sequence, including a large, violent, and catastrophic 500-yard-wide F5 tornado family that struck Fargo, North Dakota on Thursday, June 20, 1957. The outbreak caused 11 fatalities, 105 injuries, and $25.883 million in damage.
A destructive outbreak of nine tornadoes struck the Great Plains on May 29, 1953. The worst one was an F5 tornado that hit Fort Rice, North Dakota, destroying multiple structures and causing the majority of the casualties that day. Other strong tornadoes occurred that day, including an F2 tornado that did major damage when it struck McLaughlin, South Dakota. Overall, the outbreak killed two people, injured 22 others, and caused $827,500 (1953 USD) in damage.
