San Francisco, CA – October 25, 2017 – CustomWeather, Inc., a premier, specialized provider of high-resolution weather data and alert services, announced that it has released several new worldwide forecasting models to support the global agricultural industry. Utilizing research from some of the world’s top agronomists, CustomWeather has developed sophisticated and complex models for Evapotranspiration (ETo), Powdery Mildew, and Downy Mildew forecasts.
CustomWeather has developed an Evapotranspiration (ETo) plug-in for the CustomWeather Cloud Weather Service (CWS). The ETo plug-in works globally with multiple weather models to produce ETo at the native resolution of the models. Like other CWS products, the ETo can be output as gridded netCDF data or point data in XML, CSV, or JSON formats. At a more technical level of detail, CustomWeather utilizes the CIMIS equation for ETO, a version of the Modified Penman Equation with a wind function developed at the University of California-Davis. ETo data is available in hourly, every 3-hour, or daily increments, depending upon the particular model. The ETo is currently available as a forecast product but it can be run on past data as well.
Vineyards can toast to the availability of the Powdery Mildew and Downy Mildew forecast models. CustomWeather’s mildew indices rely on past and future weather conditions that are sourced from local weather station reports and CustomWeather’s proprietary high resolution forecast model to produce values. The mildew indices are currently available as a point product for specific agricultural growing areas and can be applied to growing areas around the world.