The Pellucid Perspective - November 2015 - (Page 9)

Golf weather impact IBM buys parent of The Weather Channel: Why you should pay attention By Stuart lindsay "t he future of weather got a lot more interesting this week. On Wednesday (10/28/15), IBM announced its purchase of the Weather Company's digital and data assets, a deal that the Wall Street Journal valued at more than $2 billion." Slate, Eric Holthaus, October 29, 2015. This is actually simply another indication that weather data is moving more front and center as a core component of overall business decision making analytics. The Slate article cites the acquisition of Climate Corp. by Monsanto in 2013. A little closer to home, our partners at Weatherbank and their vast warehouse of historical data and extensive forecasting expertise were acquired by Accuweather earlier in 2015. OK, I'll admit it - I am a weather nerd. My entire working career has been spent in weather dependent businesses, first in farm and outdoor power equipment and in the golf industry for the past 25 years. The Weather Channel became a regular part of my viewing habits in the early 80's and as the internet developed in the 90's, I started using Accuweather because their website loaded faster, was easier to use and their long range forecasts seemed better. We would normally get nervous about an acquisition, but our excellent working relationship with WeatherBank has continued and will be enhanced through the association with Accuweather. You should be interested, too. 2016 is going to be an interesting weather year. "The waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean are heating up, scientists say, building towards a strong El Niño event that could rival the intensity of the record 1997 event that wreaked weather-related havoc across the globe...." CNN, October 23, 2015 "Synopsis: There is an approximately 95% chance that El Niño will continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2015-16, gradually weakening through spring 2016." Across the United States, temperature and precipitation impacts from El Niño are likely to be seen during the upcoming months (the 3-month seasonal outlook was to be updated on Thursday, October 15th). Outlooks generally favor www.PellucidCorp.com below-average temperatures and above-median precipitation across the southern tier of the United States, and above-average temperatures and below-median precipitation over the northern tier of the United States." National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, October 8, 2015 Typically, Jim Koppenhaver and I have concentrated on the WeatherBank historical data to help us analyze golf course performance results. However, Jim does compile an annual forecast for our State of the Industry presentation in Orlando and our partners at WeatherBank have been pretty accurate down to our 45 region level. Also, one of our clients in Northern California asked us if we had a forecast in light of everything he was hearing about El Nino. We asked WeatherBank to put our proprietary jointly developed formula for Golf Playable Hours (GPH) through the raw data for KSAC (Sacramento). Using actual data from January - September, 2015 and their forecast through November, 2017; we can see that there are some meaningful changes projected (see graphic below). KSAC doesn't usually see that much variation as you can see for January, 2015, but the impact of El Nino will be significant over the next few months and into 2016 and 2017. The Source: WeatherBank, Pellucid, edgehill The Pellucid PersPecTive 9 http://www.PellucidcorP.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - November 2015

TOC
Payment processing again – Have you inserted your chip card?
Members lose club over gender discrimination suit
NGF Suggests that 30M Golfers Was “A Bubble”
IBM buys parent of The Weather Channel: Why you should pay attention
Beverage cart really a goose laying golden eggs?
October golf weather impact: Neutral nationally, tough for Texas
Boston needs some ‘deflation’ in supply
Singing the blues in Memphis

The Pellucid Perspective - November 2015