diff --git a/docs/Users_Guide/release-notes.rst b/docs/Users_Guide/release-notes.rst
index 21b271caf..27cc996ef 100644
--- a/docs/Users_Guide/release-notes.rst
+++ b/docs/Users_Guide/release-notes.rst
@@ -93,3 +93,20 @@ METplotpy Upgrade Instructions
   development with Python 3.12. View the requirements.txt/nco_requirements.txt file at the top
   level of the repository for version numbers for the corresponding third-party packages.
 
+
+  In June 2025, Plotly made significant updates to the kaleido package with the 1.0.0
+  release by removing Google Chrome code.  Now, users will need to have Google Chrome
+  installed in directories specified in this Plotly documentation (based on operating
+  system):
+
+https://plotly.com/python/static-image-export/
+
+The METplotpy code downloads Chrome at runtime by invoking the kaleido.get_chrome_sync()
+method call.
+
+If users do not wish to have Chrome downloaded at run time and already have Chrome installed
+in one of the expected locations (specified in the Plotly link above), then the PRE_LOAD_CHROME environment variable
+will need to be set to 'True' (case insensitive string).
+
+Refer to the Kaleido  README for more information on the changes:
+https://github.com/plotly/Kaleido
diff --git a/internal/scripts/installation/modulefiles/3.1.0_ursa b/internal/scripts/installation/modulefiles/3.1.0_ursa
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9ffb356e9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/scripts/installation/modulefiles/3.1.0_ursa
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+#%Module######################################################################
+##
+##      METplotpy
+##
+proc ModulesHelp { } {
+  puts stderr "Sets up the paths and environment variables to use the METplotpy-3.1.0.
+     *** For help see the official MET webpage at http://www.dtcenter.org/met/users ***"
+}
+
+prereq intel-oneapi-compilers/2025.1.1
+
+setenv METPLOTPY_SOURCE /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0
+setenv METPLOTPY_BASE /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0
+
+prepend-path PATH /scratch3/BMC/dtc/METplus/miniconda/miniconda3/envs/metplus_v6.1_py3.12/bin
+prepend-path PATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0/metplotpy/contributed
+prepend-path PATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0/metplotpy/plots/performance_diagram
+prepend-path PATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0/metplotpy/plots
+prepend-path PATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0/metplotpy
+prepend-path PATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0
+prepend-path PYTHONPATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0/metplotpy/contributed
+prepend-path PYTHONPATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0/metplotpy/plots/performance_diagram
+prepend-path PYTHONPATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0/metplotpy/plots
+prepend-path PYTHONPATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0/metplotpy
+prepend-path PYTHONPATH /contrib/METplotpy/METplotpy-3.1.0
diff --git a/metplotpy/plots/base_plot.py b/metplotpy/plots/base_plot.py
index ac16e2759..23d28571a 100644
--- a/metplotpy/plots/base_plot.py
+++ b/metplotpy/plots/base_plot.py
@@ -20,18 +20,53 @@
 import numpy as np
 import yaml
 from typing import Union
-
-import plotly.io as pio
-
+import kaleido
 import metplotpy.plots.util
+from metplotpy.plots.util import strtobool
 from .config import Config
 from metplotpy.plots.context_filter import ContextFilter
 
 # kaleido 0.x will be deprecated after September 2025 and Chrome will no longer
 # be included with kaleido from version 1.0.0.  Explicitly get Chrome via call to kaleido.
-import kaleido
-kaleido.get_chrome_sync()
 
+# In some instances, we do NOT want Chrome to be installed at run-time. If the 
+# PRE_LOAD_CHROME environment variable exists, or set to TRUE,
+# then Chrome will be assumed to have been pre-loaded. Otherwise,
+# invoke  get_chrome_sync()  to install Chrome in the
+# /path-to-python-libs/pythonx.yz/site-packages/...  directory
+
+# Check if the PRE_LOAD_CHROME env variable exists
+aquire_chrome = False
+
+turn_on_logging = strtobool('LOG_BASE_PLOT')
+# Log when Chrome is downloaded at runtime
+if turn_on_logging is True:
+   log = logging.getLogger("base_plot")
+   log.setLevel(logging.INFO)
+
+   formatter = logging.Formatter("%(asctime)s [%(levelname)s] | %(name)s | %(message)s")
+
+   # set the WRITE_LOG env var to True to save the log message to a
+   # separate log file
+   write_log = strtobool('WRITE_LOG')
+   if write_log is True:
+      file_handler = logging.FileHandler("./base_plot.log")
+      file_handler.setFormatter(formatter)
+      log.addHandler(file_handler)
+
+# Only load Chrome at run-time if PRE_LOAD_CHROME is False or not defined.
+# Some applications may not want to load Chrome at runtime and
+# will set the PRE_LOAD_CHROME to True to indicate that it is already
+# loaded/downloaded prior to runtime.
+chrome_env =strtobool ('PRE_LOAD_CHROME')
+if ('PRE_LOAD_CHROME' not in os.environ)or (chrome_env is False):
+    aquire_chrome=True
+    kaleido.get_chrome_sync()
+
+
+# Log when kaleido is downloading Chrome
+if aquire_chrome is True and turn_on_logging  is True:
+     log.info("Plotly kaleido is loading Chrome at run time")
 
 class BasePlot:
     """A class that provides methods for building Plotly plot's common features
diff --git a/metplotpy/plots/util.py b/metplotpy/plots/util.py
index 7b2c32897..2664f32df 100644
--- a/metplotpy/plots/util.py
+++ b/metplotpy/plots/util.py
@@ -623,3 +623,50 @@ def prepare_ctc_roc(subset_df, is_ascending):
     thresh = pd.concat([thresh, pd.Series([''])], ignore_index=True)
 
     return pody, pofd, thresh
+
+
+def strtobool(env_var:str)->bool:
+   """
+      Since distutils.util.strtobool was deprecated in Python 3.12, implement
+      our own version.
+
+      In the distutils.util.strtobool, a simple one line command was used to determine
+      whether an environment variable was set to True or False.  In this
+      example, the default value is set to False in the event that the environment
+      variable is not defined:
+
+      turn_on_logging = strtobool(os.getenv('LOG_BASE_PLOT', 'False') )
+
+      Environment variables can be set as string or bool. Evaluate whether a string
+      value for true or false (support case-insensitive text)  is True/False and
+      set the default value.
+
+      Args:
+          @parm env_vars:  string name of the environment variable to evaluate
+
+          turn_on_logging = strtobool(os.getenv('LOG_BASE_PLOT') )
+   """
+
+   true_list = ['true', 't', '1',]
+   false_list = ['false', 'f', '0' ]
+   # if the environment variable does not exist, then return False
+   try:
+      val = os.environ[env_var]
+   except KeyError:
+       return False
+
+   # If the environment variable is None, return false
+   if val is None:
+       return False
+   else:
+       # Check for variations of truth values
+       lower = val.lower()
+       if lower in true_list:
+           return True
+       elif lower in false_list:
+           return False
+       else:
+           msg = "Value does not represent a truth value (i.e. true or false)"
+           raise ValueError(msg)
+
+
diff --git a/nco_requirements.txt b/nco_requirements.txt
index 7330a6f7e..4156ef860 100644
--- a/nco_requirements.txt
+++ b/nco_requirements.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-kaleido>=0.2.1
+kaleido>=1.0.0
 matplotlib>=3.10.0
 metpy>=1.6.3
 netcdf4>=1.7.2
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ numpy==2.2.2
 scipy>=1.15.1
 pandas>=2.2.3
 pint>=0.24.4
-plotly>=6.0.0
+plotly>=6.1.1
 pytest>=8.3.4
 pyyaml>=6.0.2
 xarray>=2025.1.2
diff --git a/test/util/test_util.py b/test/util/test_util.py
index b22bcc04c..4d853708a 100644
--- a/test/util/test_util.py
+++ b/test/util/test_util.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 import os
 import pandas as pd
-
+import pytest
 import metplotpy.plots.util as util
 import gc
 
@@ -170,3 +170,48 @@ def test_filter_by_fixed_vars():
 
     for filtered in filtered_list:
        assert filtered in expected_list
+
+
+def test_strtobool():
+   """
+     Test that strtobool is returning the corresponding bool value to an environment
+
+   """
+
+   # Non-existent env var should return boolean False
+   assert (util.strtobool('NON_EXISTENT') is  False)
+
+   # Variations of false should return boolean False
+   os.environ['FALSE_1'] = 'f'
+   os.environ['FALSE_2'] = 'FaLSE'
+   os.environ['FALSE_3'] = '0'
+   os.environ['FALSE_4'] = 'F'
+   false_1 = 'FALSE_1'
+   false_2 = 'FALSE_2'
+   false_3 = 'FALSE_3'
+   false_4 = 'FALSE_4'
+   assert(util.strtobool(false_1) is False)
+   assert(util.strtobool(false_2) is False)
+   assert(util.strtobool(false_3) is False)
+   assert(util.strtobool(false_4) is False)
+
+
+   # Variations of true should return boolean True
+   os.environ['TRUE_1'] = 't'
+   os.environ['TRUE_2'] = 'T'
+   os.environ['TRUE_3'] = 'tRuE'
+   os.environ['TRUE_4'] = '1'
+   true_1 = 'TRUE_1'
+   true_2 = 'TRUE_2'
+   true_3 = 'TRUE_3'
+   true_4 = 'TRUE_4'
+   assert (util.strtobool(true_1) is True)
+   assert (util.strtobool(true_2) is True)
+   assert (util.strtobool(true_3) is True)
+   assert (util.strtobool(true_4) is True)
+
+   # non-truth values should raise a ValueError
+   os.environ['BOGUS'] = 'Whatever'
+   var = 'BOGUS'
+   with pytest.raises(ValueError):
+       util.strtobool(var)