An Operational Early Warning Agricultural Weather System

This chapter deals with the application of known weather-plant responses to provide an early alert for potential deviations from normally expected crop development and crop yield potential, and suggests that how these data can be integrated into the non-meteorologist user community. The Joint Agricultural Weather Facility (JAWF) facility was established as a world agricultural weather information center in 1978, dedicated to serve the needs of US Department of Agriculture economic intelligence work. The emphasis of JAWF&s;s analytical capability is on macroscale applications of agricultural meteorology; it does not attempt to do microscale applications. The crop-weather analysis approach used by JAWF&s;s agrometeorologists has proved successful for several reasons. The agricultural weather analysis provides the US agricultural sector with accurate data on potential markets and on supplies of potential competitors. The ultimate goal of JAWF is to provide accurate, concise, and timely information on agricultural weather as it affects global crop production.