A Real-Time Climate Information System for the Midwestern United States

Abstract

The Midwestern Climate Information System (MICIS) is a near real-time system which provides access to a wide variety of climate information products. These include current temperature and precipitation data for several hundred midwestern United States stations, historical temperature, and precipitation for about 1500 stations, climate summaries, long-range predictions, regional soil moisture estimates, and crop yield risk assessments. The region covered includes the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Because agriculture is a major sector of the Midwestern economy and is sensitive to climate fluctuations, some products have been oriented to the needs of agriculture. However, many other products have generalj applicability. Users of this system include agri-businesses and researchers. MICIS has several unique features: a) regional coverage provides climatic information for a major part of the United States corn and soybean belt: b) daily temperature and precipitation data are obtained daily from an average of 500 stations providing an up-to-date assessment of current climatic conditions; c) process models provide an estimate of potential impacts on soil moisture and corn and soybean yields.