Farmers in the Southeastern United States can now learn about changes in seasonal climate patterns earlier than ever, thanks to a new long-term forecasting system developed by the Southeast Climate Consortium (SECC), a partnership among six universities in Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

SECC researchers are using data that has been collected daily for the past 50 years from 214 weather stations in Alabama, Florida and Georgia to make county-by-county forecasts that farmers can view on the Internet. The SECC, which produces its forecasts at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has issued the first in a series of quarterly forecasts aimed at helping farmers reduce risks to their crops and increase their odds of a successful growing season.

The SECC’s new spring outlook indicates that unseasonably heavy rain in March has recharged soil moisture, thereby allowing crops to flourish.

“March rainfall was up to three times above normal in Georgia,” said David Stooksbury, a SECC researcher and state climatologist at the University of Georgia in Athens. “By the middle of April, soil moisture across most of Georgia is ranked near the 80th percentile for this time of the year. This means that in 80 out of 100 years we would expect soils to be drier in mid-April than they currently are.”

Recent heavy rains have also reduced the risk of wildfires this season, the SECC spring outlook said. The outlook is based on the Keetch Byram Drought Index, which provides a monthly assessment of wildfire risks in the Southeast.

“The SECC approach to forecasting is based on climate phases and works great during an El Niño or a La Niña phase, but it’s less useful during what’s called a neutral phase,” Stooksbury said.

“For the past two years, the Southeast has been in a neutral phase,” said Jim O’Brien, director of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies at FSU. “People often assume that a neutral phase will bring average weather.”

But, he said, that’s not true. “Weather can be all over the place - from dry to wet or average - in a neutral phase. Still, there’s currently no indication of drought this summer, so chances are good that crops will have adequate moisture,” he said.

Stooksbury also said that, with the variability associated with day-to-day weather during the neutral phase, a cold spell or two is still possible across much of the Southeast.

SECC’s Web site, http://agclimate.org, is available to the public and provides monthly forecasts of rainfall and temperature for all counties in Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

It also allows farmers in some counties to get personalized predictions of the probability that their yields for peanuts, potatoes and tomatoes will be good, average or poor. Users can tailor their crop yield forecasts based on the soil type of their land, whether or not they irrigate and their average yield in the past.

The Web site’s highly specific forecasts are important because what a producer is experiencing frequently is quite different than what’s happening in neighboring counties, said John Bellow, an SECC extension specialist at FSU.

“We hope that more growers will use our Web site when they plan their planting and harvesting, and prepare for freezes,” said Clyde Fraisse, an extension specialist and SECC researcher at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, or UF/IFAS, in Gainesville. “Growers also can use it to link to other information about climate, crop management and crop insurance.”

Jim Jones, a distinguished professor of agricultural and biological engineering at UF/IFAS and SECC researcher, said additional crop data is being added to the site to help farmers. 

SECC member institutions are the University of Florida, Florida State University, University of Miami, University of Georgia, Auburn University and University of Alabama at Huntsville.

SECC is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the USDA Cooperative States Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES) and the USDA’s Risk Management Agency.