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That consumers buy more icecream on a hot day is hardly news but did you know they also purchase more hair removal cream?
It's the sort of relationship one New Plymouth weather forecasting firm is hoping to prove to retailers.
MetOcean Solutions aims to create a tool that uses detailed weather forecasts businesses can incorporate into stock orders and planning.
The company has drawn on international research showing that hot weather affects more than just the queue at the icecream counter.
The sale of hair removal cream rises with the temperature as people wear less clothes and show more skin, while soft drink sales rise four fold for every degree increase between 18C and 24C but then start falling in favour of water products, the company says.
MetOcean business manager Jamie Silk said research in the UK showed even the type of icecream people picked up at the supermarket changed as the temperature increased.
"When it gets over another temperature point sales drop off drastically of ... icecream tubs because people are only buying the icecreams they can eat there and then because it's going to melt in their car on the way home," Silk said. "Relationships can be quite a bit more complicated than you might think at first."
George Sutherland, Foodstuffs Wellington general manager retail services and marketing, said the project seemed like a good idea.
"Weather has a huge influence over shopping habits and it can influence what type of meat people buy," Sutherland said. "It would be of some interest, that's for certain, particularly around fresh foods."
MetOcean currently provides weather services to help operational planning at harbours and in offshore industries including oil and gas.
The new project evolved from experience gained examining business information needs from a weather perspective and providing tools to help manage operations.
"We're comfortable with that and experienced in the marine environment and it made sense to look at the land environment next," Silk said.
The company could provide hourly forecasts days in advance down to an area as small as a 25m grid - effectively a street block.
Conceptually the idea is simple - compare sales to weather events.
The reality, however, can be far more complex with computers used to undertake potentially millions of statistical calculations dating back years in search of predictable relationships.
The end result is expected to be a web or file-based tool which can advise people how to adjust their orders and plans based on the weather they are about to get.
Wider business applications could include help for companies planning staff levels and airports planning for weather-related disruption.
"People don't have to make their own judgments, they can get an objective number," Silk said.
MetOcean is looking for partners to supply sales and operational information and during the next 10 weeks will gather and begin analysing data.
