Tools for climate and agriculture
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The Fruit Growers News reported this week that Alabama peach growers are concerned about the lack of chill hours this year. You can read the article at https://fruitgrowersnews.com/news/alabama-peach-growers-hope-for-cooler-weather/. Some of the problems with the lack of chill hours are a reduction in fruit set and a longer bloom period, which could mean that at harvest growers…
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The latest QPF map shows that large portions of the Southeast will receive less than half an inch of rain in the next seven days. This is welcome news for farmers who are waiting for their soil to dry out so they can get out and work the fields, but is less good for those…
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Reporters often ask me about how a month or a season ranked compared to other years of record. I like to use the Southeastern Regional Climate Center’s Perspectives tool to help determine that. You can use the link https://www.sercc.com/perspectives?user=true and set your own start and end point to pick the time period of interest. For most…
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The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) has a page which allows you to graph accumulated precipitation for selected stations across the country and compare this year to previous years. These graphs are called Haywood plots and you can view the current graphs at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/dyk/elnino-2015-2016 under “Haywood Plots”. Previous strong El Niños are highlighted in blue with…
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According to the Southeast Regional Climate Hub, the PINEMAP DSS (decision support system) is now available online. According to SERCH, it is “a map-based collection of climate and forest productivity web tools designed to provide region-wide information on likely future climate risks, opportunities, and impacts on southern pines at the watershed scale.” The goal is…
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The unusually warm fall has had quite a few agricultural impacts. The Packer noted today that Florida strawberry volumes have really been set back by the warmth (link). The season started early, but the heat is stressing the plants, which causes a reduction in the number of berries set. I’ve also had some calls from…
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AL.com posted a story yesterday with the title above looking ahead to the future as El Niño reaches its peak intensity and starts to decline. What happens after a strong El Niño starts to fade? Keep in mind that it will take months for the mass of unusually warm water in the Eastern Pacific Ocean…