Use of Real-Time Multisensor Data to Assess the Relationship of Normalized Corn Yield with Monthly Rainfall and Heat Stress across the Central United States

Abstract This study evaluated the suitability of rain estimates based on the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) network to estimate yield response to rainfall on a county scale and to provide real-time information related to crop stress resulting from deficient or excessive precipitation throughout the summer. The relationship between normalized corn yield and rainfall was examined for nine states in the central United States for 1997–99 and 2001–02. Monthly rainfall estimates were computed employing multisensor precipitation estimate (MPE) data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and quality-controlled (QC_Coop) and real-time (RT_Coop) NWS cooperative gauge data. In-season MPE rain estimates were found to be of comparable quality to the postseason QC_Coop estimates for predicting county corn yields. Both MPE and QC_Coop estimates were better related to corn yield than were RT_Coop estimates, presumably because of the lower density of RT_Coo...