Honey, I just booked the flight and the weather hedge

http://www.tcsdaily.com

A site I haven't seen before but looks interesting. This article focused on the practical side of weather futures rather than the usual absurdist take on gambling on the weather.


http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=021506E


"City governments would like it if snowfall were low because they would not have to spend the money to have the roads plowed and salted. Ski resorts, on the other hand, would prefer to have a lot of powder for their customers. Nevertheless they could each bet that they would experience bad fortune in order to minimize their losses."

A lovely transfer of risk that couldn't exist without a prediction market!

My favourite line, "…who knows, soon you may be checking the weather forecast at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange rather than on your local news."

Here is the CMEs very informative page on Weather Derivatives: http://www.cme.com/trading/prd/env/cmeweather14270.html


The ideal situation would be when weather futures would be traded by retail traders before weddings and vacations. Orbitz could even have a link to the appropriate contract next to the booking confirmation.

My kind of world!