Plan the perfect outdoor wedding with WeatherTrends 360
Wouldn’t it be lovely if you could glimpse into the future and see what the weather holds?
For brides who are planning an outdoor wedding, you’re probably not fretting about the decor or the guests – but the weather! Well fret not, ladies, because science is here to help you. WGA would love to introduce WeatherTrends360.com (WT360), a website that gives you weather forecasts anytime, anywhere.
And best of all? It’s FREE! Here’s our chat with CEO of WT360, Bill Kirk:
Tell us about WeatherTrends 360…
WT360 is run by Weather Trends International, who for the last 9 years have provided year-ahead weather forecasts internationally to hundreds of Fortune 1,000 companies – such as Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, Hershey’s and Johnson & Johnson. We’ve had no shortage of press and have been featured on ABC 20/20, Good Morning America, World News Tonight, Fox Business, CNBC TV, Forbes Magazine, etc.
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WT360's website - weather forecasts anywhere in the world!
How does it work?
To generate the year-ahead forecasts we use 4+ million lines of computer code, trillions of weather metrics across millions of locations going back over 100 years using proprietary and complex algorithms to make your forecast. The technology behind the year-ahead forecasts has been globally acclaimed with 6 technology awards including #5 on Forbes Magazine’s Most Promising Company list out of thousands of businesses. We also have 11 professional meteorologists including several PhD’s on staff.
As the CEO of WT360, how did you get involved?
I’m also the inventor of the technology, which started about 22 years ago while I was Captain Kirk (no relationship to the movie Star Trek, haha) in the Air Force. But my passion for weather actually started as a young boy growing up in Kaneohe, Hawaii where I witnessed an epic storm that brought 100 inches (2,540 mm) of rain in one week! That’s about as much as Kuala Lumpur gets in one year! It was at this early age I decided to better understand how weather works.
Dreaming of blue skies?
But it sounds like something out of a dream to predict the weather so far in advance?
It’s been a dream of mine for 21 years to make this a reality! We are embarking on a strategy similar to Facebook, as we believe this technology should be made FREE to anyone, everywhere. While our big global clients pay $50,000 to $250,000 annually for our more complex forecast information we believe it should be free to consumers; you don’t have to pay for a Facebook post or a Google search. We believe the same should be true for WT360. Our forecasts are independently audited for accuracy by a 3rd party firm Forecast Watch and we’re proven to be the most accurate when it comes to year-ahead forecasting.
There is no such thing as perfection when it comes to weather forecasting, especially a year from now but we believe we can help everyone better plan for events important to them. I joke that we’ll make 7 to 8 brides very happy with our forecast but unfortunately we will be wrong 2 to 3 times out of 10 so we apologize in advance if it rains on your special day!
Hong Kong brides - avoid an overcast day!
Have you had many brides use this service?
YES! We have over 10,000 users across 155 countries already and hundreds are wedding planners or brides-to-be. In fact, brides were the inspiration behind WT360 as we were on ABC 20/20 and Good Morning America a couple years ago and after the show, thousands of brides called in asking for their forecast! So now we’ve made it easy for everyone. We have a lot of success stories with weddings and most recently saved one Father of the Bride nearly $10,000 as he cancelled the tent! That one made us very nervous but the forecast was right. But again we’re not 100% so always hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Here in South East Asia, things are a little temperamental as we’re by the equator. Does this make your work harder?
We’ve been forecasting the world’s year-ahead weather for many years now and you’re right that it is more difficult to forecast in the tropics. It rains a lot in Malaysia so trying to identify when it won’t rain is challenging. But in addition to the year-ahead forecasts we do have very sophisticated shorter range forecasts that go out 14 days and even hour-by-hour forecasts out 1 week so these can help determine when the rain will stop – hopefully just in time for a perfect beach wedding! Only about 55% of our users are in America with the other 45% coming from 154 other countries. We have hundreds of users in Singapore, hundreds more in Australia and thousands across China.
For us, it is very normal to be rainy and sunny in the same day! The hour-by-hour forecasts for the next 7 days can certainly help fine tune when the rain is likely as the big day nears!
Sunshine in the Yarra Valley, Melbourne
Why is your service free?
FREE – always will be to consumers! Our goal is to help everyone around the world better plan life’s important events, whether that’s a wedding, garden party or vacation holiday so they no longer need to leave the weather to chance. While we can’t change the weather, it’s about time we’re able to plan with a little less risk from the weather. In exchange for giving you the world’s weather, all we ask for is an e-mail to get started. If you really like us then go ahead and do the simple Facebook type registration and tell us a little more about yourself, as membership certainly has its privileges allowing you to share the forecasts with friends, e-mail weather alerts and more. And rest assured – we will NEVER sell your information to anyone and you’ll never see annoying advertising on our site!
It is the weather and there is no guarantee but we are certainly trying to take the science of meteorology to a whole new level.
* There you go, girls; if weather is a worry then hop onto the WeatherTrends 360 portal for a forecast – even up to a year ahead! And the best thing about it? It’s free!
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