"The Development and Evaluation of a Soil Moisture Indes (SMI) using Automated Weather Data Network (AWDN) Soil Moisture Data in Nebraska for the 1999-2006 Growing Season"; Eric Hunt; Advisors-Ken Hubbard and Don Wilhite. Soil Moisture is an important parameter in the hydrological balance and is essential for understanding land-surface interactions. While spatial coverage of soil moisture is poor across most of the United States, impedance probes have been used to measure soil moisture throughout Nebraska in the Automated Weather Data Network (AWDN) since 1999. With eight years of continuous data at selected sites, we were able to derive a Soil Moisture Index (SMI) that is based on an actual water content () and a known field capacity and wilting point. The SMI is a continuous function and is scaled from 5.0 to -5.0, with 5.0 representing at field capacity and -5.0 representing at wilting point. Since the inception of the soil moisture network in 1999, periodic episodes of drought have affected all areas of Nebraska. Thus the SMI was used in this manuscript to analyze growing seasons (April 1-October 1) from 1999-2006 at six carefully selected sites throughout Nebraska. The SMI proved to be effective at depicting the onset of drought and at identifying soil recharge, or lack thereof, when heavy rainfall events followed a significant dry spell.