Midwestern Agricultural Climate Atlas

Abstract

Convenient access to frequently used climate statistics is now literally at your fingertips. Climatologists from the Midwestern Climate Center at the Illinois State Water Survey have developed a self-contained, computerized regional atlas of climate data for the agricultural community. The Midwestern Agricultural Climate Atlas contains climate statistics for 645 midwestern sites with long-term daily climate records. They are located in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The daily data for these sites were transformed into readily usable weekly and monthly statistics for the atlas database. These statistics include air temperature, precipitation, and snowfall means, extremes, and probabilities of occurrence for various time durations from one week to one year. From these primary climatic elements, other variables are derived, including heating, cooling, and growing degree days; growing season length; and frost dates.