LONG RANGE FORECAST (LRF) SUPPORT SERVICE

Overview of the LRF Service
The LRF service comes in as a support service to the three main services. “Long Range Forecasting” is already mature on the thematic level and operationally produced every month by both SAWS. The SAWS LRF product is a blend (=simple average) of 4 different models. (CFS, IRI, Univ. Of Pretoria, and SAWS) and can be considered as state-of-the-art.

Integration of the LRF in the 3 main services enables us to:

• Embed a “Seasonal Crop Outlook” in the bulletins and reports of the Agricultural Service, which will give an idea about the risk for crop failure at the end of the growing season
• Generate a “Seasonal Drought Risk Outlook”-map which will give an idea about the risk for sustained drought
• Embed the “Seasonal Fire Risk Outlook” in the bulletins and reports, which can give an idea of the areas with a high fire risk

The LRF support service shall deliver the expected

• “Rainfall”
• “Minimum Temperature”
• “Maximum Temperature”

This will enable the main-services to make an outlook of the crop/drought/fire-risk situation towards the coming months and to produce a seasonal outlook. It is therefore interesting to link the output of Long Range Forecasting (LRF) with the other three core SADC services.

See also LRF Products