Phenology Forecasting

My primary research involves forecasting the timing of leaf out, flowering, and other phenological events.

phenology.naturecast.org

I made this site as a proof of concept for making regular, automatically updated, large scale ecological forecasts. Twice a week it downloads the latest climate forecasts from NOAA, downscales them to a scale suitable for ecology, then, depending on the season, applies several hundred different phenology models for different species. The phenology modeling aspect is broken out into it’s own package which others are free to use.

See the paper describing how I put the system together: Automated data-intensive forecasting of plant phenology throughout the United States.

How good are the forecasts? Check out the preliminary evaluation in my Ecological Society of America 2018 poster.