AIR Releases Climate Forecasts for Winter Season

September 23, 2002

AIR Worldwide Corporation (AIR), a provider in catastrophe modeling and weather risk management, has released its ClimateCast™ forecasts through March 2003, encompassing the heart of the winter season.

The heating season forecast from November to March shows an increased probability of above average temperatures in the North and West of the United States and below average temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States. Complete forecasts, together with a forecast-confidence index, are available to corporations through AIR’s ClimateCast.

“The energy industry is one of many that will be impacted by this forecast. Higher than normal temperatures in the Northern United States equate to less demand for oil, natural gas and electricity for heating,” Mark Gibbas, AIR senior research scientist in meteorology, commented. “With the recent volatility in the energy markets and the political situation in the Middle East, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the energy sector. AIR’s ClimateCast gives companies the information they need to support their operational planning and trading activities.”

AIR’s ClimateCast forecasts provide average temperature and aggregate heating degree-days (HDD) for three forecast windows. The current release provides a monthly view for October and November, three-month rolling views (Oct-Nov-Dec, Nov-Dec-Jan, Dec-Jan-Feb) and the aforementioned entire heating season (Nov-Dec-Jan-Feb-Mar) for the continental U.S. and all major cities nationwide.

AIR ClimateCast forecasts are developed using an advanced climate forecasting system based on the latest technologies in climate modeling.

Critical components of the system include, a state-of-the-art global climate model, a real-time data acquisition system, which ingests several gigabytes of environmental data daily and an advanced downscaling methodology developed by AIR, which services the insurance, reinsurance and capital markets.

Topics Trends USA

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