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The Drought Impact Lines dataset highlights areas that have been physically impacted by drought. All drought impact lines have a drought impact label inside of them to express the longevity of the impact. The impact lines are classified using impact labels as follows:

S – Short-Term, typically less than 6 months. L – Long-Term, typically more than 6 months.

This series of datasets has been created by AAFC’s National Agroclimate Information Service (NAIS) of the Agro-Climate, Geomatics and Earth Observations (ACGEO) Division of the Science and Technology Branch. The Canadian Drought Monitor (CDM) is a composite product developed from a wide assortment of information such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), streamflow values, Palmer Drought Index, and drought indicators used by the agriculture, forest and water management sectors. Drought prone regions are analyzed based on precipitation, temperature, drought model index maps, and climate data and are interpreted by federal, provincial and academic scientists. Once a consensus is reached, a monthly map showing drought designations for Canada is digitized.

Agriculture is an important primary production sector in Canada. Agricultural production, profitability, sustainability and food security depend on many agrometeorological factors, including drought. The Canadian Drought Outlook predicts whether drought across Canada will emerge, stay the same or get better over the target month. The drought outlook is issued on the first Thursday of each calendar month and is valid for 32 days from that date.

Cumulative heat-energy satisfies the essential requirement of field crop growth and development towards a high yield and good quality of agricultural crop products. Agriculture is an important primary production sector in Canada. Agricultural production, profitability, sustainability and food security depend on many agrometeorological factors. Extreme weather events in Canada, such as drought, floods, heat waves, frosts and high intensity storms, have the ability to significantly impact field crop production.

The Blended Index (BI) is a model which employs multiple potential indicators of drought and excess moisture, such as the Palmer drought index, rolling precipitation amounts and soil moisture, and combines them into a weighted, normalized value between 0 and 100. The inputs and weights used in this model are subject to change periodically as it is optimized to best represent extent, duration and severity of impactful weather conditions. The blended index is deployed as two variations; short term (st) focusing on 1 to 3 months, and long term (lt) focusing on 6 months to 5 years.

The Blended Index (BI) is a model which employs multiple potential indicators of drought and excess moisture, such as the Palmer drought index, rolling precipitation amounts and soil moisture, and combines them into a weighted, normalized value between 0 and 100. The inputs and weights used in this model are subject to change periodically as it is optimized to best represent extent, duration and severity of impactful weather conditions. The blended index is deployed as two variations; short term (st) focusing on 1 to 3 months, and long term (lt) focusing on 6 months to 5 years.

The term "Palmer Drought Index" has been used collectively to represent multiple indices. This index is simply a water balance model which analyzes precipitation and temperature, and used as a tool to measure meteorological and hydrological drought across space and time. All versions of the index uses the Versatile Soil Moisture Budget to model the movement of water within the system, and a daily Priestly-Taylor model to estimate evapotranspiration. The Palmer Drought Index (PDI) uses monthly temperature and precipitation data to calculate a simple soil water balance.

Precipitation (moisture availability) establishes the economic yield potential and product quality of field crops. Both dry and wet precipitation extremes have the ability to inhibit proper crop growth. The maximum daily precipitation index covers the risk of excessive precipitation in the short term, while the other indices pertain to longer term moisture availability. Agriculture is an important primary production sector in Canada.

The term "Palmer Drought Index" has been used collectively to represent multiple indices. This index is simply a water balance model which analyzes precipitation and temperature, and used as a tool to measure meteorological and hydrological drought across space and time. All versions of the index uses the Versatile Soil Moisture Budget to model the movement of water within the system, and a daily Priestly-Taylor model to estimate evapotranspiration. The Palmer Drought Index (PDI) uses monthly temperature and precipitation data to calculate a simple soil water balance.

Winds can significantly influence crop growth and yield mainly due to mechanical damage of plant vegetative and reproductive organs, an imbalance of plant-soil-atmosphere water relationships such as evapotranspiration, and pest and disease distributions in agricultural fields. The maximum wind speed and the number of strong wind days over the forecast period represent short term and extended strong wind events respectively. Agriculture is an important primary production sector in Canada. Agricultural production, profitability, sustainability and food security depend on many agrometeorological factors.