Paying for private weather

Press, 23 January 1984, Page 16

Paying for private weather

From “The Economist,” London

Farmers and others who need a glimpse of what the weather is about to do to them are helping to make private weather forecastig a growth industry. American businesses now pay up to $l2O million a year to private firms for analysis and information about the weather.

The private firms get their data from the government’s national weather service. This sells raw infomation to 22 middlemen, including other Government agencies, which rework it and retail it to others.

About three quarters of retail billings are made by firms that do general analysis or prepare the data for television (such as for a 24-hour all-weather cable station in Atlanta) or other publication. The rest is accounted for by specialist forecasters who sell to clients such as airlines, barge operators or builders (who need to know, for example, exactly what the temperature is going to be when they pour cement in cold weather). The fees charged run from $5OO to $7500 a month.

The private forecasting business hardly existed five years ago (and *is still undeveloped outside the : United States). New technology has made it possible. To distribute

data, the national weather service switched from the clunking telex machines it had used for decades to high-speed computer transmissions. Personal computers have made it easy for even tiny businesses to subscribe to specialised services from the private forecasters, and see weather maps and satellite pictures on their own screens. ‘ y It once seemed that even basic

weather data might come under private control in America. The Reagan Administration proposed selling the Government’s weather and land-viewing satellites. But Congress did not like the idea, and that proposal is now dead. Its fate has not, however, deterred the Administration from mulling over privatising weather stations and some other forecasting Copyright—The Economist.