Profits to be made from an early autumn for retailers?

Storm Exchange have just announced the release of their Early Autumn 2008 Weather Risk Outlook (view the full press release here). It’s full of useful forecasts and commentary as usual but one piece stood out to me.

They are forecasting an early start to Autumn this year and say that this is good news for retailers, pleasing for that industry under the current economic climate. Their outlook which ‘combines state-of-the-art atmospheric research technologies with 150 years of historical data to give businesses a risk probability that they can use to measure, monitor, anticipate and manage their climate and weather-related risks’, suggests that for every 1°F that the temperature drops in September sees comparable store sales increase by 50 basis points at specialty apparel and department stores.

Amazing! Statistics like this which are based on scientific data models really demonstrate how weather risk management can help to protect the bottom line!