Stormy periods like the events of Friday, May 20 get everyone talking about the weather. Where did it hail? How much rain fell at your farm or lake home? Many times the real time weather is the information needed. Sources for current weather activity can be television, radio, satellite information services, and the internet. Certainly, accessing weather radar maps that show current rainfall has been a boon to farmers and commercial applicators. Radar maps displaying current rainfall activity is valuable for timing applications to either minimize the risk of wash-off or perhaps optimize incorporation of water activated soil applications.

Many weather resources are available that also provide predictive growth models for several crops grown in the region. Other models are available that report crop disease risk or insect biology predictions. Some useful internet sites that are available for accessing this information are provided here. These certainly are not all of them and you may already have favorites that you use.

For current weather:

National Weather Service, Central Region Headquarters
     http://www.crh.noaa.gov/

Interactive Weather Information Network (IWIN)
     http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/

Intellicast by WSI Corporation
     http://www.intellicast.com/

For regional agriculture weather and crop models:

Wisconsin-Minnesota Cooperative Extension Agricultural Weather
     http://www.soils.wisc.edu/wimnext/

MN Association of Wheat Growers: Scab Risk Model
     http://mawg.cropdisease.com/

NDAWN: North Dakota Ag Weather Network
     http://www.ndawn.ndsu.nodak.edu/temperatures.html

Sclerotinia Risk Forecast Program for ND and MN
     http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/aginfo/sclerotinia/sclerotinia.htm

Phillip Glogoza Regional Ext Educator—Crops