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300 Billion weather forecasts accessed by Americans annually
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Americans are apparently obsessed with weather forecasts. Each year, they access weather forecasts via the internet, paper, or television 300 billion times. As the population of the United States is around 300 million, that averages out to about three checks of the weather a day per person.
The study, carried out by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), suggests that “the value Americans place on these forecasts appears to be far more than the nation spends on public and private weather services.” [NCAR] The press release goes on to detail that most people are fairly confident in the information they receive in forecasts two days in advanced.
The irony in the article is two-fold. First, for as much as people rely on weather forecasts, one would think that considerably more money would be poured into the field of atmospheric science, even just in the realm of private donors. When asked to place a monetary value on forecasts, scientists found that “on a per-household basis, [a person] would place an average value of about 10.5 cents on every forecast obtained. This equates to an annual value of $31.5 billion.” [NCAR] That is an enormously large industry, and one that isn’t equated in the real world, where only $5.1 billion is used to provide forecasts. However, "the authors cautioned that it is difficult to put a dollar
figure on the value of forecasts." [NCAR]
There is still a great need to help boost accuracy in predictions for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, not to mention hurricanes. With so many people so involved in obtaining forecasts, one would think that public and private weather services would be a high investment.
The answer to that quandary may be simple: people are generally satisfied with the forecasts they receive. Much of forecast gathering is an idle behavior not directly linked to any action. "This tells us that people generally have a high level of interest in weather forecasts, regardless of whether they are using this information directly for planning and decision making," says Julie
L. Demuth, author of the study which was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society. [NCAR]
The second irony is simple: if people are confident about the forecasts they receive for at least two days out, why in the world do they need to check forecasts three times a day? And one could only imagine that that number is relatively low for the technology age, when people are constantly reminded about the temperature by weather bugs on their computers.
Part of the reason may be that weather is pervasive. Weather is everywhere—radio stations give a forecast once every 20 minutes it seems. The study found that local news was the favorite spot for weather information with people viewing the forecast 33.7 times per month on average. “Web pages and newspapers were less common sources overall, but both are a daily or more frequent source of forecasts for 27 percent of respondents.” [NCAR] So maybe people are not actively seeking forecasts—maybe they forecasts simply come to them.
No matter which way it is accessed, the discrepancy of the value placed on forecasts to the amount of money that is used to provide them is an interesting piece of psychology and economy.
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