"Weatherlawyer" wrote in message
oups.com...

Apparently (according to a regional BBC news interview with regional
forecaster Shefali Oza) a farmer can drive all the way to a
supermarket's warehouse with a perfectly viable crop and have it
refused on the loading dock if the weather forecast is not good and the
stocks are not low.

If the weather is not good and the crop is a salad vegetable for
example, the supermarket management assumes that the consumption of
salads will not be high enough to warrant their buying excess stock.

Which is all very well but why not tell the farmers they buy from that
they employ this tactic? Who would be hurt if this was common
knowledge?

If the weather is good the supermarket is more likely to buy the crop
as they think they might sell more salad in nice weather. Which means
that an erroneous forecast for bad weather will cost everyone money.

How do those statistics add up?

Assume there are as many bad forecasts for good as for bad spells. For
the farmer it's swings and roundabouts.

For the supermarket, they can miss out on an opportunity to sell more
stock if the weather turns out to be warm when slated for cold and
overstock if the weather slated for warm turns out to be cold or wet.

In the UK there are warm wet spells and cold sunny ones ...ah bugger;
my meds have kicked in again haven't they?


I fail to find anything in you vitriol that would merit the headline
"bast**d accountants ruining the country" I think you may have a case in the
example given if you were to have addressed it to supermarket buyers who in
my experience are definitely not accountants !!

Jim