Weather.com

Web site adds new section for weather & farming

The Weather Channel Interactive, in partnership with Monsanto Co., has announced a new section dedicated to weather and farming at www.weather.com/farming.

Within Agriculture News & Forecast, is Farmers Forecast, which includes up-to-date weather information and detailed data about precipitation, wind and soil moisture.

Farmers Forecast adds farming-related alerts in addition to the severe weather alerts already available through the weather.com site.

These alert consumers to warnings with freeze, frost, high wind or hail indicators for each forecasted day. The page includes not only the percent of precipitation but also an actual projection of the amount of rain that is expected.

Decision-making components
Weather.com/farming will offer several components to help farmers make decisions before and throughout the season. From the same page, users can easily change locations to keep up with multiple farms or compare sites.

Following are examples of the information included in the new section:
• Soil moisture information
• Detailed wind data
• Sunrise and sunset times
• UV index

In addition to 36-hour and 10-day forecasts, the new section also includes an almanac that allows users to compare the forecast with typical and historical weather conditions. Farmers can reference past weather conditions and plan crops accordingly using information such as daily and monthly averages, as well as actual reported conditions from the day, week and month to date.

Helpful maps available
Agriculture News & Forecast includes more than 30 maps for anyone with an interest in agriculture.
Regional/national maps give a detailed visual display of drought severity, soil moisture, precipitation forecasts, rainfall estimates, optimal planting schedules and first/last freeze norms.

An interactive map allows consumers to customize points of interest and specific weather layers such as radar, clouds, dew point, temperature and past precipitation.

An on-line campaign from Monsanto will feature many of the company’s brands such as Deltapine, DEKALB, Asgrow, Yieldgard, Roundup Ready and Roundup PowerMax. To stay on top of the latest forecast and agriculture news, please visit www.weather.com/farming.