State guide

Nebraska Nature Guide

Nebraska is a Great Plains state defined by grass and water — the mixedgrass and shortgrass prairie of its rolling interior, the vast grass-stabilized dunes of the Sandhills, and the broad, braided Platte River that bisects it. Each spring the Central Platte near Kearney and Grand Island hosts the single greatest gathering of Sandhill Cranes on Earth, roughly half a million birds staging on the river's sandbars alongside millions of migrating geese. From the humid eastern bluffs along the Missouri River to the semi-arid panhandle and the dark-sky country of the Sandhills, Nebraska's climate is sharply continental, spanning USDA zones 4b through 5b.