# FlashWatch

- **Event:** [Meta Global AI Developer Hackathon](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon)
- **When:** Oct 26, 12:00 PM – Nov 4, 9:00 PM (EST)
- **Where:** Online
- **Team:** [Jamie Twiss](https://cerebralvalley.ai/u/jst206)
- **GitHub:** https://github.com/JamieT206/flashwatch
- **Demo video:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vjVoGmpSy4
- **Gallery:** https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery
- **Page:** https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/383

A flash drought dries a field out in two or three weeks, usually in a summer heat wave. By the time the US Drought
Monitor shows it, the damage is often done: in USDA county yields from 2005 to 2021, rain-fed corn yielded about 20%
below trend where a summer flash drought hit, while irrigated corn in the same counties lost only about 2%. Irrigation saves the crop, but only if the irrigation pivot is already running--a pivot can't catch up once the root zone is empty in
a heat wave. So every summer morning an irrigator has to decide: start the pivot today, or wait?

FlashWatch answers that question at the level of an individual farm. Every forecast date it gives the chance that the soil at the
farm drops into flash drought in the next 7 and 14 days against normal for the date. It combines today's
observed soil moisture, rain and heat (ERA5-Land) with ECMWF's ensemble weather forecasts in a gradient-boosted model
(where no archived forecast exists, a convolutional network that sees the whole map helps). A water balance of the field then calculates the recommended actions: what starting extra irrigation today is worth per acre, against waiting for the next forecast.

On the tenth of farm-days FlashWatch rates riskiest, a flash drought begins in the next 7 days 6.3 times as often as
normal in development (5.6 times in the test years 2022-2024); a hot-and-dry
rule of thumb manages less than twice. The soil crosses the drought line a median 22 days before the Drought Monitor
first shows drought at that place, and on the farms FlashWatch flags, the Monitor's own map gets worse within two weeks
2.2 times as often as elsewhere. Across the High Plains and Midwest that's worth about $140 million a year: about $28 million on irrigated
corn and $109 million on rain-fed farms, where the decisions are different (skip a fungicide pass, trim side-dress
nitrogen, buy hay before prices rise).

Agents built on Meta's models carry the advice to the farm. SAM 3.1 finds a farm's pivots in an aerial photo. Muse
Spark plans which pivots to run each morning, checks the plan against the farm's rules (well capacity, water
allocation, season), asks the farmer on WhatsApp, and starts the pivots only on a YES. Farmers can ask questions or
send a voice note from the field, and a watcher texts only when something changes. Every figure an agent writes is
traced back to FlashWatch's own numbers before it reaches the farmer.

The testing is strict: every prediction shown comes from a model that never saw that year's data; features only read what was
public on the forecast date (an automatic test perturbs the future to prove it); and the test years 2022-2024 are
scored once, after the model is frozen. Null results are reported alongside the wins.

FlashWatch runs live: each day it pulls the latest soil data and ECMWF's free real-time ensemble forecast and updates
the site (out of season, as now, it shows July 3 of this year's season to demonstrate). Any past season can also be replayed day by day.

Live demo: https://jamiet206.github.io/flashwatch/ Code: https://github.com/JamieT206/flashwatch Video: https://youtu.be/6vjVoGmpSy4

## More from Meta Global AI Developer Hackathon

- [Orbital](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/380)
- [Memex](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/381)
- [Nuksee](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/382)
- [Drawing-to-Parametric-CAD](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/384)
- [Meta Quant Auditor](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/385)
- [UI Evolution Engine](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/386)

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Markdown version of https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/383. Site index for agents: https://cerebralvalley.ai/llms.txt · full text: https://cerebralvalley.ai/llms-full.txt