(May 3, 2007) -- Officials from the National Weather Service forecast office in Jackson presented the Honored Institution Award to Mississippi State University's (MSU) Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES) in Starkville. This prestigious award recognizes the university for 125 years of weather observations and cooperative service to the National Weather Service.

Honored Institution Awards are presented to institutions or industrial organizations in which several people have taken observations over a period of years. These awards are presented at 25 year intervals.

MAFES Director Dr. Reuben Moore accepted the award on behalf of the university and participating staff members. Volunteers at Mississippi State University have been providing weather observations since May 1, 1882. Currently, the staff monitors and provides daily reports on temperature, precipitation, evaporation and soil temperatures to the forecast office in Jackson.

"The collection of critical data by the team at MSU, as well as the thousands of cooperative observers across the nation, serves as the bedrock of weather data analysis", said Steven Cooper, acting director of the National Weather Service Southern Region. "Computer models, satellites and other data collection breakthroughs are excellent tools for forecasts and warnings. But, without the century-long accumulation of accurate weather observations taken by volunteer observers, scientists could not begin to adequately describe the climate of the United States."

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