Climate forecasts are becoming more useful to farmers and ranchers, but, a lot of work remains to be done to make them really useful. Presently, researchers with the Agriculture Research Service are working on new methods to downscale seasonal forecasts to the farm scale and express them in one-month increments. The next step is already in place. An ARS-developed software program has been modified to generate daily weather outcomes corresponding to monthly climate forecasts.
As an example of the present situation, researchers have found that NOAA's predictions of periods of above-average temperatures are accurate enough to be possibly useful for agriculture over most of the lower 48 states. However, currently available forecasts for cooler-than-average temperatures are generally too unreliable for many uses anywhere in the country. And, forecasts for wetter- or drier-than-average conditions are mostly useful in only about 10% of the lower 48 states.
Once researchers are comfortable with their weather predictions based on climate forecasts, they are expected to begin a roll-out of the technology, beginning with limited areas of the nation.
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