News / Business
Weather Trends International Retail Weather Roundup
What a difference a year makes! Last year the first two weeks of June got off to the hottest start in a couple decades for the nation as a whole - not this year! Nationally, the first two weeks of June 2009 are trending the coldest in 6 years and 4th coldest of the past two decades. Last year there was a scorching heat-wave in the Northeast with 95°F to 100°F+ temperatures while this year it’s much cooler in the 70s and low 80s. This year-over-year change toward much colder weather will have a big negative impact on hot seasonal category sales for items like A/C and auto batteries with strong double digit declines; beverage categories will have single digit declines. The cooler pattern is more favorable for gardening items, overall growing conditions, outdoor food categories, exterior paint and deck stains and automotive products like wax. Last year, drought was still prevalent in the Southeast. This year, the wettest Spring conditions in 6 years and the 2nd wettest Spring in a couple decades has completely erased the drought. This is a big plus for mosquitoes which has resulted in strong sales gains for personal repellent categories.
The exception has been the Pacific Northwest where it has been the other extreme. Last year was the coldest early June in a couple decades, this year the hottest in 20 years to start June. This hotter trend in the Northwest is a big plus for stronger demand for hot seasonal categories.
Severe weather has also taken a break with May tornado activity down 20% vs average and 51% below the active May last year. Severe weather activity may become more prevalent in the Central U.S. in the weeks ahead, but the first week of June was off to a continued slow start with only 22 tornadoes reported.
While this second week of June is the coldest in 11 years (2nd coldest in 17+ years) for the nation as a whole, the later half of June looks more promising for hot weather items with some building heat in the South and East for Father’s Day and the July 4th holidays. The West appears to cool off. The negative factors for stronger overall retail sales in June 2009 are the tough comparisons to last year when June industry retail same-store sales were the strongest in all of 2008 at +4.2% according to Chief Economist Mike Niemira of the International Council of Shopping Centers. An increasing negative is gas prices which are now trending at their highest levels in 8 months, but still 35% lower than the record $4 gas last year.
PRESS CONTACT:
Bill Kirk, CEO
(O) 610-807-3585 (C) 484-903-6887
About Weather Trends International: The global leader of actionable year-ahead business weather guidance for retailers, manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, agricultural firms, financial analysts and the movie industry. Clients include some of the world’s most respected and successful companies like Wal-Mart, ASDA, Target, Kohl’s, Bon-Ton, Sherwin-Williams, AutoZone, Anheuser-Busch, Johnson & Johnson, 3M, JP Morgan, Agway, Hershey’s, American Crystal Sugar and over a hundred others. Its business centric weather solutions and understanding of how consumers respond to the weather is used throughout organizations to help "manage the weather risk”. Utilizing technology first developed in the early 1990s, Weather Trends International’s unique statistical math based trade secret formula forecasting methodology projects temperature, precipitation and snowfall trends by day and week a year-ahead for 20,000 locations across the globe with an industry leading 80%+ accuracy. Offices in New York, NY, Bethlehem, PA, and Bentonville, AR. Visit http://www.wxtrends.com/ or http://www.myskeye.com/ for more information.
