Ranching by Weather Websites
B
BY DR. MEGAN CLAYTON, Extension Range Specialist, Texas A&M AgriLife Center in Corpus Christi, TX DR. JAY ANGERER, Associate Professor, Blackland AgriLife Research Center in Temple, TX
oth with the Department of Rangeland, Wildlife, and Fisheries Management at Texas A&M Uni versity Ranching is rooted in culture. The smell of cow hair, a dusty dashboard from a day of driving with the windows down, or the creek of an old, but still functioning windmill are timeless. Although nobody gets into ranching to become a deskbound worker, most would admit that techniques used to manage a ranch have improved tremendously in the past decade thanks to internet-based technologies. In addition to the livestock market, ranching is centered around rainfall. Pocket notebooks and spiral-bound binders on consoles are often filled with rainfall records from different locations on a single ranch. This information is not just useful for bragging or pity rights at the coffee shop, these records tell a story and teach valuable lessons about rainfall trends and how to properly stage livestock herds to manage the forage for long-term success. Today these tools are available without ever leaving your home air conditioning.
6
Ag Mag THEAGMAG.ORG
The first site to explore is brought to you by the National Weather Service (https://water.weather.gov/precip/index.php). This site for “Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service” allows you to type an address into the search box at the top right to investigate rainfall for daily, monthly, or yearly time ranges for the past 15 years (or so) up to the current day. The use of both weather gauge and satellite corrections provides a picture of overall rainfall on a particular property. Choosing the product option “Departure from Normal” is very telling, as it will visually reveal if rainfall is higher or lower than normal, giving ranchers the opportunity to manage their livestock herd accordingly. Keep in mind that this tool could overestimate summer rainfall because of very small rainfall events and convection storms. Fall and winter rainfall could be underestimated due to smaller droplet sizes and often more gentle rainfall events. West Wide Drought Tracker (https://wrcc.dri.edu/wwdt/ time/) is another site that offers several different weather variables or indexes for viewing after selecting a site on the map. At the top, try using points (nearest 4x4-km
