With federally appropriated funding through the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA NRCS), the University of New Hampshire and collaborators will assess the community needs for designing a coordinated network of automated snow and weather measurement stations in the East, similar to the SNOTEL network in the western US. The ultimate goal of the NESS project is to comprehensively monitor snowpack, weather and hydrological variables across elevational gradients and mountain ranges in the region so that we can better understand the impacts of climate change on mountain snowfall and runoff, mountain ecology, flood and avalanche danger, backcountry recreation, and tourism.