Famine risk, 90 days ahead.
CERES is a food security forecast that gives the risk of a food crisis in 43 countries, 90 days ahead. Each forecast goes into a log that cannot be changed before the outcome is known, and is graded in public once the outcome is published.
A warning is only useful if you can check how often it was right.
Humanitarian agencies decide where food and money go months before a crisis peaks. The established early warning systems do not publish prediction-level accuracy records, so nobody can see how often they were right.
CERES gives a probability for IPC Phase 3 or worse, Phase 4 or worse and Famine, with an uncertainty band on every number. Every forecast stays public next to the outcome, so anyone can count the hits and the misses.
What it reads.
- Rainfall
- The rainfall anomaly against the monthly normal, from NASA POWER.
- Vegetation
- MODIS vegetation index from NASA every 16 days, against a 2015 to 2020 baseline.
- Conflict
- UCDP GED conflict events from Uppsala University, an open, university-hosted dataset.
- IPC phase and food prices
- The current IPC classification and market prices through OCHA's Humanitarian API, HDX HAPI.
- Outcomes
- FEWS NET outcomes, compatible with IPC, grade each forecast after 90 days.
How it works.
- Normalise
- Each signal is compared with its own history, for countries, provinces and districts.
- Score
- A logistic model calibrated on 87 historical IPC transitions gives the probability of Phase 3 or worse, Phase 4 or worse and Famine within 90 days. On held-out data its AUC was 0.84.
- Bound
- Every probability carries a 90 percent interval from perturbing the inputs.
- Tier
- A Tier-1 alert means at least 0.70 for Phase 3 or worse, Tier-2 from 0.45, Tier-3 below.
- Gate
- An output gate checks every run for complete inputs and for probabilities in order before it is published.
- Register
- Each forecast gets a permanent ID, such as CERES-HYP-SDN-20261012-C2AB49, and goes into the ledger before the outcome is known.
- Grade
- After 90 days the forecast is graded as soon as the observed classification is published, which runs two to four months behind.
In figures.
- 43
- Countries forecast
- 90 days
- Forecast horizon
- 4
- Open data sources
- ~95%
- Of the active IPC Phase 3+ caseload covered
- Mondays
- The scheduled run, at 06:00 UTC
- CC BY 4.0
- Licence of every forecast and grade
Forecasts for 43 countries since March 2026.
CERES has registered forecasts for 43 countries since March 2026, at country, province and district level. A run is scheduled every Monday at 06:00 UTC, and every forecast it publishes goes into the ledger before its outcome is known.
Grading began in September 2026, when the first 90 day horizons closed and the outcomes were published. The current scores are on the record page, read from the ledger.
The ledger today.
Read from api.ceres.northflow.no on 4 November 2026.
See the full record- 1,376
- Forecasts on the record, each logged before its outcome
- 157
- Graded against the observed outcome
- 502
- Past their 90 days, waiting for the outcome to be published
- 430
- Still inside their 90 day horizon
Papers, code and data.
- arXiv:2603.09425CERES: A Probabilistic Early Warning System for Acute Food Insecurity.
- api.ceres.northflow.noForecasts by country, province and district, the hypotheses, the archive and the grades. No key needed.
- ceres.northflow.noThe map, the 43 countries and the ledger in the browser.
- github.com/northflowlabs/ceresThe public dashboard that shows the forecasts from the API.
Who it serves.
For methodology, joint research or the use of CERES in humanitarian analysis, write to ceres@northflow.no.
Write to us- Humanitarian agencies planning where to send food and funding.
- Researchers who want to check the forecasts against the outcomes themselves.
- Donors and public bodies weighing early action.
