How the advisory board works
Every number on the farm weather board can be traced to a public, verifiable source. This page walks through the full path — where the data comes from, how we turn it into advice, and what its limits are.
The path, in five steps
From a city name to a farming recommendation
What happens each time the board loads.
Step 1
You choose a hub
Each of the 21 hubs is mapped to verified coordinates and one of six agro-ecological zones — because advice that fits the Shabelle valley can fail on the Bay plateau.
Step 2
Live weather is fetched
Your browser calls Open-Meteo, which blends ECMWF and national weather models (≈10–25 km grid, updated hourly): current conditions, a 7-day forecast and the past 30 days of rainfall.
Step 3
River flow is checked
For the 16 hubs on the Juba and Shabelle, a second call fetches the GloFAS river-discharge forecast for that hub's stretch of river and compares it against 10 years of history.
Step 4
Calendars are applied
A knowledge base compiled from FAO GIEWS, FAO SWALIM and FSNAU publications supplies each zone's seasons, crops and planting windows. This part is expert-verified by agronomists, not live-generated.
Step 5
Advice is written by rules
Fixed, transparent rules combine the live numbers with the calendar — no black box. Every sentence on the board traces to a rule plus a number you can see.
Example rules — exactly as the engine applies them
If
The current month falls inside the zone's FAO/FSNAU planting window
Then
The planting window shows Open
If
A rainfed hub has under 40 mm of rain in 30 days and expects under 20 mm in the next 7
Then
The board says wait for the rains to establish — planting into dry soil wastes seed
If
Forecast river flow exceeds the 80th percentile of its own 10-year history
Then
The board flags high river flow — above the 95th percentile, very high
Expert review
Verified by agronomists, not generated live
The human step in the pipeline.
Live weather and river numbers arrive automatically — but the agronomy behind them does not. The seasonal calendars, crop lists and planting windows for each zone are compiled from FAO GIEWS, FAO SWALIM and FSNAU publications and reviewed by Somali agricultural experts — agronomists, livestock specialists and fisheries advisors — before they enter the rules engine.
The same expert review applies to the operational advisory M-Tacab sends to farmers: every rule and every calendar is checked by people who know that a tip that works in the Shabelle valley can fail on the Bay plateau.
The river-flood signal, in detail
The part we are most often asked about
And the part most platforms get wrong.
Finding the river
GloFAS models river discharge on a ≈5 km grid. A town's centre often sits off the river channel, where the model reports almost no flow — so for each riverine hub we scanned the surrounding grid and locked the query to the cell that actually carries the river. Jowhar's signal, for example, comes from the Shabelle channel cell at 2.73°N 45.45°E, not from the town centre.
Deciding what "high" means
A flow of 600 m³/s means nothing without context — normal for the Juba, exceptional for the Shabelle. So for every hub we pulled the full daily discharge record for 2015–2025 (≈4,000 days per reach) and computed that reach's own 80th and 95th percentiles. "High" on this board always means high for that specific stretch of river, measured against its own decade of history.
How "high" and "very high" are decided
Illustrative year of daily river flow for one reach, against that reach's own 2015–2025 percentiles.
Six zones, twenty-one hubs
Somalia is not one farming system
Each hub on the board is treated according to its agro-ecological zone — its own seasons, crops and water source.
Riverine — Shabelle & Juba valleys (irrigated)
- Seasons & crops:
- Gu (Apr–Jun) & Deyr (Oct–Dec), plus irrigated dry-season horticulture
- Water:
- Canal and pump irrigation along the Shabelle and Juba rivers
Coastal peri-urban — Banaadir
Market vegetables Oct–Feb
- Seasons & crops:
- Market vegetables Oct–Feb; maize and cowpea in Gu & Deyr
- Water:
- Shallow wells and coastal rains around the capital
Rainfed inter-riverine — the sorghum belt
- Seasons & crops:
- Gu (Apr–Jun) & Deyr (Oct–Dec), fully rainfed
- Water:
- No river — planting follows the rains only
River recession — Hiran (Shabelle)
- Seasons & crops:
- Gu & Deyr grains, plus recession crops planted as flood water recedes
- Water:
- Riverbank moisture left behind after seasonal river peaks
Northwest highlands — Awdal & Maroodi Jeex
- Seasons & crops:
- One long season: Gu (Apr–Jun) into Karan (Jul–Sep), harvest Oct–Nov
- Water:
- Higher-altitude rainfall plus springs and shallow wells
Juba pump irrigation — Gedo
Onions & vegetables Oct–Feb
- Seasons & crops:
- Grains in Gu & Deyr; onions and vegetables Oct–Feb
- Water:
- Motor pumps lifting Juba river water in an otherwise arid zone
What this board is not
Honesty is part of the methodology
Four limits every serious reader should know.
Models, not rain gauges
Somalia's ground-station network is sparse, so weather values are model estimates — excellent for patterns and trends, but a specific field's rainfall can differ from the grid average.
A flood signal, not a flood forecast
High modelled flow means statistically unusual water volumes. Whether a bank actually breaks depends on embankments, siltation and upstream breaches — things no global model sees. Treat the flag as a reason for vigilance, and follow SWALIM flood advisories.
Zone-level, not field-level
Planting windows are compiled at zone level from FAO and FSNAU calendars. Soil, seed variety and local micro-climate can shift the right date on any given farm — which is why the board hedges rather than commands.
A window into the real service
This public board is in English for partners and visitors. Farmers receive the operational advisory in Somali — by USSD, SMS and voice on basic phones — through the M-Tacab platform itself.
Sources
Where the data comes from
- Open-Meteo
live weather, forecasts and 30-day rainfall history (ECMWF and national models)
- GloFAS via Open-Meteo Flood API
river discharge, Copernicus Emergency Management Service
- FAO GIEWS — Somalia country brief
seasonal calendar and crop production context
- FAO SWALIM
Somalia water and land information, flood monitoring reference
- FSNAU
seasonal monitors and agricultural methodology
- FAO Crop Calendar
crop planting and harvesting windows
The same engine, on a basic phone.
This board is the public face of the advisory M-Tacab runs for 31,236 active subscribers in Somali — localised, season-aware and delivered over USSD, SMS and voice.