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NEW WEATHER TOOL COULD BE A GAME-CHANGER FOR DROUGHT-STRUCK GROWERS Anne Hardie
NIWA metereologist Ben Noll
A new tool being developed by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) to forecast drought and dry conditions could help growers and farmers be better prepared. NIWA meteorologist, Ben Noll, says scientists will use a weather model released in the United States in 2020 and refine it for New Zealand‘s complex terrain. It will involve some “data science and deep learning” to understand the New Zealand context. Initially it will be developed to forecast 35 days ahead and then it will be extended to three and later, six months, as researchers try to push predictions further out. “We are trying to determine if a drought is likely,” Ben says. “Whether or not drought has a higher probability in the next two seasons.” The new forecast tool will sit alongside the New Zealand Drought Index which was developed and launched in 2017. It measures the current status of drought across the country and measures the duration and intensity of recent dryness. 32 NZGROWER : FEBRUARY 2022
In other words, it is an observation of drought once it has happened. NIWA also provides seasonal climate outlooks each month that look to as many as three months ahead, but they are not drought specific. The new tool will try and foresee the potential for dryness and drought and therefore limit the risk of being caught out by drought.
Initially it will be developed to forecast 35 days ahead and then it will be extended to three and later, six months, as researchers try to push predictions further out Until now, New Zealand meteorology has been using a climate model with a 100km resolution which describes the distance between nodes on a grid.
