The Crop Moisture Index (CMI) gives the short-term (up to 4 weeks) status of agricultural drought or moisture surplus and can change rapidly from week to week. The CMI indicate general conditions, not local variations caused by isolated rain. Input to the calculations includes weekly precipitation totals and average temperature, division constants (water capacity of the soil, etc.), and previous history of the indices. The CMI can be used to measure the status of dryness or wetness affecting warm season crops and field activities.
Crop Moisture Index data were available via indices text files. Text files are available by National Weather Service regions across the contiguous United States. Regional text files were ingested, combined, and spatialized to display the Crop Moisture Index data for CONUS.