This paper is an attempt to determine the extent to which Australian tertiary sector organisations stand to gain from improved weather forecasts. An upper limit to this amount must be the sum of the maximum savings afforded by weather forecasts sufficiently accurate (“almost” perfect) to result in weather-error-free decisions for each organisation. The paper presents the results of a survey of tertiary sector organisations undertaken to determine the amount of these potential savings. The paper discusses operational improvements to increase the usefulneww of forecasts, and also discusses the structure of the weather forecasting industry in general.
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