PRIMARY producers will have access to more agriculture-specific weather and climate information to help make critical business decisions with the release of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Forewarned is Forearmed products.
The new tools will help improve farmgate productivity and profitability by allowing users to drill down to their location to view the chance of unseasonal and extreme rainfall and temperature in the weeks, months, or seasons ahead.
General Manager Agriculture and Water, Matthew Coulton, said the tools were informed by farmers’ day-to-day needs and developed in consultation with the agricultural sector.
“The tools will help a livestock producer decide when to schedule their muster for the safety of their stock and staff, or a horticulturalist choose the day to plant their seeds with confidence that they won’t be washed away,” Mr Coulton said.
The three new tools provide rainfall and temperature forecasts for weekly, monthly, and seasonal timeframes at specific locations, the probability of rainfall over a week, month or season exceeding any amount, and outlooks for three-day rainfall bursts at significant measurements of 15, 25, 50 and 75 mm. http://www.bom.gov.au/mate/outlooks.