We often rely on forecasted weather conditions, which are predictions made from one hour to ten days into the future. This provides us with expected high and low temperatures as well as amount and/or probability of precipitation, wind direction and speed, humidity levels, and other variables from which to base our decisions (Figure 1). Past this timeframe, we rely on climate outlooks that provide strictly a probability of above- or below-average conditions, rather than a specific value (Figure 2). In the case of an outlook, there is usually too much uncertainty in these model predictions to provide an amount of precipitation, but rather a trend (wetter or drier than average). These outlooks are often relied on for farm management decisions made at the seasonal scale, or several months to a year into the future.
Figure 1 - Weather forecast map example, showing position of low and high pressure areas, fronts, and possible precipitation.
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