BBC News report Xanthe Hinchey investigates how businesses are using technology to stay ahead of extreme weather conditions. Snowstorms, floods, hurricanes and volcanic eruptions can have a disastrous effect on business.
Weather-induced chaos disrupts transport and infrastructure resulting in lost productivity – costing global businesses billions of dollars. But these scenarios have also presented an ideal opportunity for technologists to remind businesses that there are now the means to lessen the impact of bad weather.
People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia, and formally since at least the nineteenth century. Weather forecasting is now big business. Meteorological data is collected from robotic buoys in the ocean, from ships, from satellite views and from thousands of volunteer climate observers.
FedEx Express, one of the world’s biggest delivery companies, employs an in-house team of 15 meteorologists to forecast the weather.
“FedEx has one of the best weather technology centres of any airline and it really does give us an advantage to make sure we can plan and have one of the most robust delivery systems in the business,” says William Martin, managing director of the firm’s UK operations.
Gritit is a firm whose business is based around weather – gritting roads and car parks for clients ranging from hospitals and the police when temperatures plunge. And it is another company that relies on tailored weather technology to run its business.