Technical Abstract: Inherent weather variability in upland rangeland systems requires relatively long-term goal setting, and contingency planning for partial success or failure in any given year. Rangeland plant communities are dynamic systems and successional planning is essential for achieving and maintaining systems that are resistant to weed invasion and resilient in the face of landscape-scale disturbance. Pro-active adaptive management may have to be implemented at the beginning of a given planning cycle in order to accommodate NEPA requirements for prior approval of potential management activities. Pro-active planning for weather variability is possible by anticipating management contingencies for alternative weather impacts on seedbed preparation, seeding, weed control, and other management alternatives. Success and failure must be weighed in the context of weather variability, and monitoring programs must be adjusted to accommodate weather-induced limitations to specific inferences about treatment effectiveness. Weather data is increasingly available and should be utilized whenever possible both in the planning and evaluation stage of Ecologically Based Invasive Plant Management. Links to weather data sources, gridded weather datasets, and other planning and management tools are available from the EBIPM website at www.ebipm.org.