Australia · USDA PSD

Australia wheat: yield nowcast

A rain-fed crop from Western Australia to Queensland, harvested from October. Five states of weather and satellite vegetation health, benchmarked against USDA's WASDE.

2011–2025seasons backtested, retrained each year on earlier seasons only

0.27t/ha RMSE on 1 Aug (trend 0.48)

0.31t/ha RMSE on 15 Nov (trend 0.48)

86%of final yields inside the 80% interval, all dates

Explore

Every forecast, season by season

Pick a harvest year, a forecast date and a region. Everything updates: the forecast with its 80% interval, how the view moved through the season, and how this forecast date has scored over all seasons.

From orbit NOAA satellites

The crop, seen from space

Weekly vegetation health over the wheat area, 4 km pixels masked to wheat fields. The nowcast for this origin uses these satellite readings, each only once the week has been published. All origins on the satellite page →

This season against every season since 2000

VHI combines greenness (VCI) and heat stress (TCI); below 40 the crop is under stress.

Every season, week by week

Red: stress. Blue: healthy canopy.

Does the satellite see the yield?

Correlation r = 0.79 over 15 seasons.

Benchmark

Against USDA's WASDE

In August the nowcast was closer than the WASDE in 12 of 15 years (11.3% vs 18.9% RMSE). By December, with harvest results in, USDA is ahead (6.9% vs 14.5%).

Error by WASDE month

% of the final USDA PSD figure.

August forecasts, year by year

Below zero: the forecast was under the final crop.

Read with care. USDA forecasts production, so its error also includes area; the nowcast forecasts yield only. Part of USDA's early gap is area, not yield.