This is just one example of how, even in tough economic times, the Weather Trends International team of business weather experts can help minimize negative financial performance when Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate.

Despite the unpleasant conditions that are making life uncomfortable for many UK residents who are without water, power, or both, this sustained Arctic blast was not an unforeseeable event. The use of weather derivatives are one way to protect against this risk. Another is through the use of better long range seasonal outlooks. The chart below highlights the weather forecast for 24 UK markets made by Weather Trends International. Note that this was a long range temperature forecast for the UK, which we made several months in advance. The bars indicate the forecasted year over year temperature (by day), and the solid line shows the observations through 07 January 2009. The ‘hit rate’ for this period, which represents the number of days during the specified period where our long range forecast was directionally accurate, is 78%. Our forecast captured both the magnitude and the timing of this shift from warm to cool, which commenced right around the Christmas holiday.