The Weather Company Named Most Accurate Forecaster

The Weather Company, an IBM business, was shown to be the most accurate forecaster in a study by ForecastWatch, the U.S.’s premier authority in meteorological validation.

The study named The Weather Company’s consumer brands The Weather Channel and Weather Underground as the most accurate forecasters overall across diverse geographic regions and time periods covered.

The study evaluated the top forecasting services in three regions independently: the United States since 2010, and Europe and Asia Pacific since 2013. Within each region, data was broken out into three different forecast time ranges.

According to ForecastWatch, The Weather Company was the overwhelming leader, offering the most accurate one- to three-day and three- to five-day forecasts in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and the most accurate six- to nine-day forecasts in the U.S. and Asia. The study collected forecasts from eleven different providers and analyzed a total of more than 139.3 million forecasts.

“Our users and clients turn to us to help them make weather-related decisions with confidence. This study shows The Weather Company as the undisputed accuracy leader, confirming the trust of more than 250 million people who choose The Weather Company for weather information every month,” said Mary Glackin, senior vice president of science and forecasting operations at The Weather Company. “Making a claim is easy, but backing it up takes continued effort and focus on who you’re serving. With IBM, we’ve stepped up investment and made a dedicated effort toward advancing our forecasting skill in 2016.”

You can learn more about The Weather Company here.

The Weather Company Extends Access to WEATHERfx Platform

The Weather Company, an IBM Business, announced today it is expanding off-property access to its proprietary automated ad targeting platform, WEATHERfx, and further extending the capability beyond The Weather Channel and Weather Underground web and mobile properties.

As part of this WEATHERfx expansion, Weather has collaborated with The Trade Desk, a global self-service technology platform for buyers of advertising, and Vistar Media, the industry’s first and only solution for programmatic out-of-home advertising.

Through The Trade Desk and Vistar Media, marketers will be able to leverage WEATHERfx targeting across a variety of programmatic campaigns. Both programmatic and digital OOH advertising are promising growth markets, with programmatic ad spending expected to grow at double-digit rates for the next several years, and digital placements forecasted to account for more than half of OOH ad spending by 2018.

WEATHERfx is an automated targeting platform that helps power more informed marketing decisions by leveraging weather’s potential impact on emotion and delivering messaging designed to inform consumer action. Using weather-based triggers that identify conditions when weather is most likely to drive consumer behavior, the automated WEATHERfx platform eliminates media waste and activates a brand’s media to run when the optimal mix of conditions occur.

“Collaborating with The Weather Channel to extend WEATHERfx data targeting to out-of-home was a natural fit,” said Michael Provenzano, CEO & Co-Founder at Vistar Media. “Vistar’s platform is uniquely built to respond to data sets involving location and time – like weather conditions – to help marketers connect with on-the-go consumers at the right place and right time with relevant messaging.”

In addition to improving the relevancy of programmatic advertising campaigns via The Trade Desk and Vistar Media, WEATHERfx can also be used off-platform to help marketers better target messaging across social media, email marketing, and on marketers’ owned and operated websites or mobile apps.

 

Stormy Weather

I think I can speak for all of us here in the U.S. south and mid-west when I say we’re soooo over this seemingly never-ending storm and tornado season.

I watched CNN with rapt attention yesterday afternoon as the storms made their way through north Texas and into Oklahoma, and was horrified at the funnel clouds dropping left and right.

After the entirely tragic E5 storm that devastated Joplin, Missouri, Sunday, I, like so many, was concerned we would see more of the same through Oklahoma.  It was still bad there, of course, but fortunately not quite that bad.

In the Dallas area, several tornadoes touched down in the metroplex as well, and a couple of funnels dropped but didn’t stick around, near my hometown of Denton.

The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang cites the fact there have been approximiately 1,000 tornadoes this season, nearly 500 perished (with Joplin being the most deadly tornado since 1950 with 122 people dead).

Even worse, technology doesn’t seem to be faring well in terms of prediction.  As Andrew Freedman writes, “this tornado season has obliterated the notion that massive investment in a national severe weather forecasting infrastructure and early-warning network ensures a low tornado death toll.”

There’s likely no silver bullet that will entirely prevent such tragedies, but I like Capital Weather’s suggestion: Follow @capitalweather (or your local Twitter weather-related ID) for breaking weather alerts.

Between that and the civil warning sirens going off, that would be enough to send me running for cover, especially in this insane storm season.

Finally, if you missed the other breaking news today, CNBC anchor and co-host of “Squawk Box” Mark Haines died unexpectedly overnight at his home.

This is truly sad news, as he was a welcome host in mine and so many millions of homes trying to stay abreast of breaking business news.

Thoughts, prayers, and good wishes to the entire CNBC family.  It can’t be an easy day for them to be on the air.

They’ve set up a web page for Mark Haines remembrances here.