The empirical weather information – shared in the The Dog Days of Summer article – was obtained via the Mesonet website. I am often surprised by how few know about this awesome resource made possible by collaboration between university scientists at Oklahoma and Oklahoma State (who knew they could get along?!). The website provides access to weather information across the entire state of Oklahoma, as well as agriculture calculators such as the Drift Risk Advisor for spray applicators and the Cattle Comfort Advisor for livestock producers.
As indicated above, I primarily use this tool to monitor current and past (~30 years) weather conditions symptomatic to proper and proactive management of agricultural natural resources. However, there is something for everyone – whether you just want to look at current radar, get your local, site-specific, weather conditions or compare last month’s rainfall to this month. The Choctaw Nation has seven ranches located across five counties; thus, we typically heavily utilize five of the available 120 “networked” sites. However, it sure is nice to be able to monitor the growing conditions across the entire state to include in holistic marketing and management decisions. Give it a try! I think you will find it very useful and interesting, and I just bet you end up bookmarking the site.