Weather prediction has been gradually improving over the last decade or so, with several factors contributing to the improvement. The two main contributors have been the advent, refining and increased frequency of satellite photography, and secondly the improvement in the mathematical simulation of the atmosphere's motion. Both these improvements have been incorporated into the Bureau of Meteorology's &quote;Cottonfields&quote; service, which routinely presents up to date satellite photographs and output from numerical weather models as part of the service. &quote;Cottonfields&quote; is accessed through a fax machine interface by potting a regularly updated databank, and during the period when the cotton is in the ground, up to 1500 calls a week are received. One of the man intentions of the service is to enable growers to improve their water management strategies, and to assist in this, rainfall predictions out to 4 days ahead are issued.