Seasonal Climate Outlooks for Midwest Agriculture: Applying NOAA CPC Outlooks for the Midwest/Plains Agricultural Community

The official climate outlooks for the United States are created and delivered by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC). These outlooks have a broad range of use across a variety of user groups in the United States. To enhance the usefulness of these outlooks for the Midwest and Northern Plains agricultural community, the USDA Midwest Climate Hub has developed a recurring product called the Midwest Ag-Focus Climate Outlook. This heightened outlook uses NOAA CPC outlooks along with current condition maps from the NOAA-funded Regional Climate Centers and USDA World Agricultural Outlook Board to discuss the current climate situation, impacts to various agricultural groups and the current outlooks and potential impacts for agriculture into the next month to season. Despite covering the main corn and soybean areas, the outlook seeks to address a wide range of goods, including specialty crops and livestock. The Midwest Ag-Focus Outlooks are a “value added” product of the NOAA CPC outlooks because context is added by regional climate and ag specialists and the Midwest Climate Hub for the agricultural community and addresses impact information for current and projected climate conditions.