Tools for climate and agriculture
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Evapotranspiration data is part of the necessary water balance information that farmers need to determine irrigation needs. But it has been hard for many producers to come by, especially in states without mesonets that calculate it using their meteorological data. Here is a new online source of ET information called OpenET that helps reduce that…
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If you use USGS streamflow, groundwater, or precipitation data, you will want to know about this. USGS is going through a modernization process and will be ending much of their pre-calculated statistics information by the end of 2025 or very early 2026. Thus, WaterWatch will be decommissioned. Realtime and monthly (for the prior month) streamflow percentiles will…
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What do mesonet operators do when they are not out in the field maintaining equipment? Just like everyone else, we go to meetings! For mesonet operators, we learn more about how to measure the weather accurately, do quality control on the data, and provide it to our users in an effective way. This article from…
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ProPublica published a series of maps describing how the climate of the US is likely to change by mid-century back in 2020. It popped up in my social media feeds this week so I thought it might be good to highlight it again. You can see the article at https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/. One of the most striking…
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UPDATE: It is now available for Android phones as well, so check it out! Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I do not have high regard for a lot of weather apps that are available for smartphones. They are called “crap apps” by meteorologists for a reason. The National Weather Service…
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I noticed when I was looking at the hourly weather forecast for Athens that the next two nights will both have freezes here in Athens, but the types of freezes will be quite different. You can see it quite well using the hourly graphical temperature forecast, so I thought I would discuss them using the…
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The USDA Risk Management Agency folks that administer the HIP-WI hurricane and tropical storm insurance recently held two webinars that explain how the hurricane insurance works and where the data for verification of claims comes from. You can view a recording of the webinar at Jan. 16 – HIP-WI and TS – Webinar Video.