NEWA Network for Environment and Weather Applications

Post harvest is a time when my husband and I reflect on the year that we have just been through. So far, we have 6 years of tending vines and every year is different. In talking with Charles Massoud of Paumanok Vineyards, no two years are the same. But, with each passing year, we can learn something.
We are not alone in feeling that this year was very challenging, for us, rather devastating. According to Cornell Agritech post Veraison to Harvest, written by Chris Gerling and Hans Walter-Peterson, It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity. And the Rain. And the Clouds. And the Fruit Flies.
This first line in this article begins:
"I come to bury 2018, not to praise it. I mean, yuck. New York agriculture presents challenges every season, but this one bordered on ridiculous."
Were they reading my mind? Although this article talks about conditions in New York, it could very well have been the conditions we experienced in southeast coastal Connecticut.
Further in the article was this:
Again in 2018 we were in desperate need of a warm, dry September and October to boost maturity and ease disease pressure. Spoiler Alert: no dice.
Maybe it was the damage already done by the humidity (Figure 6). Maybe it was the rain, which never left for more than three days in a row.
Maybe it was a combination of these factors or other factors that were harder to perceive, but for whatever reason, sometime around September 15th the rot index went from suboptimal-but-manageable to Zombie Apocalypse, Vineyard Edition.
Again, very relatable. We also hoped that an Indian summer would help us to keep ripening our fruit, but yes, what we had instead was the Zombie Apocalypse.
So, the question is, how can we better manage our crop? One very helpful website that my husband located is the
NEWA Network for Environment and Weather Applications.
The site looks like this:

The tabs on the top of the page include: Weather Data, Pest Forecasts, Station Pages, Crop Management, Crop Pages, Weather Stations, and Help.
We will be referring to this site frequently.