Regional Climate Services: A Regional Partnership between NOAA and USDA

Climate services in the Midwest and Northern Plains regions have been enhanced by a recent addition of the USDA Climate Hubs to NOAA’s existing network of partners. This new partnership stems from the intrinsic variability of intra and inter-annual climatic conditions, which makes decision-making for agricultural land managers inherently risky. To reduce these weather and climate-related risks, NOAA and the USDA Climate Hubs are working together to 1) generate spatially-explicit and temporally relevant climate information, including shorter-term seasonal climate forecasts, and 2) distribute it to a wide network of agricultural and forest land managers. Two-way communication between agencies and land managers is key to enhancing the usefulness of, and stakeholder trust in, NOAA’s climate information and services.