WeatherBill's Success

While it's not a PM, WeatherBill seems to be doing well. This article mentions trade sizes in the tens of thousands, much larger than any weather-based contracts available on intrade.

On WeatherBill.com there is nothing about trading or contracts. The focus is on what a customer is interested in: a custom solution to hedge against weather.

Unlike companies that sell weather insurance or futures based on the weather, San Francisco-based WeatherBill lets companies create weather-specific coverage for their business.

Initially, energy companies used them as a hedge against unusually cool summers or warm winters, when energy consumption might be low.

Soon, corporate America embraced the concept and weather futures began trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. But at that level, the contracts were complex and expensive, shutting out small firms.

That's where WeatherBill and others stepped in with customized derivatives. Clients pay a one-time premium that amounts to a percentage of the revenue the company wants to protect. WeatherBill has hundreds of clients, so the odds of payouts are in WeatherBill's favor.

Easy To Use Weather Hedging Tool

Unlike most weather contracts, this site makes them easy to get estimates and really hedge against fluctuations. Forbes has an article on them here.

Their Tools section makes the estimates dead simple to do.
https://www.weatherbill.com/tools

Friedberg, 26, has an astrophysics degree from UC, Berkeley and left his job in business development at Google last summer to start Weatherbill. Now up to a staff of 12, he plans to open a U.K. branch and eventually sell contracts tailored for specific neighborhoods or remote locations using a $250 weather gauge.

Biggest flaw is that right now you can't hedge a Hawaii vacation, "no reliable weather stations there" is what they told me.