Farmers are always on the lookout for better information about the weather – there’s nothing that has a greater impact on growing crops than what Mother Nature has in store each day. Weather trends, projections, and forecasts are one of the most important tools on a farmer’s belt. That’s why I was extremely pleased to discover StormWire, a news site that focuses not just on the weather, but on its impact on business and investment. Not everything on StormWire is farm-related, but there are a lot of great stories that are extremely relevant to farmers, as well as a wealth of material that is 100% agricultural in focus.

One recent story caught my eye; there have been high hopes for near-record corn harvests this year, but it looks like bad weather in Kansas is putting the kibosh on that. The latest federal projection is for the harvest to be 7% below last year’s level. These are still relatively high production levels, just not the record-setters that many of us had hoped for. The late rains are good for wheat farmers whose crops are still growing, however, and the wheat harvest is expected to get a boost.

I was about to embark on an epic research journey to find other great weather sites that would be helpful for my farm readers, but – this being the Internet – I was very pleased to discover that someone else had already done it for me. The good folks at IlliniWeather have built a fairly comprehensive index of agriculturally-oriented weather sites. There are great sites that aren’t on that list, but every site on that list is great. Happy forecasting!