Bright future for Event Weather

A LOCAL online weather service provider able to predict climatic conditions up to 12 months in advance has further plans for international expansion.

Since 2008, Subiaco-based Event Weather founder and director Amir Farhand said his company has provided a world-first forecasting service that had no competitors.

Mr Farhand explained that complex algorithms, historical data and a combination of seven weather parameters (latitude, altitude, wind direction, sunshine and so on) and numerous global parameters such as sea temperature, atmospheric air movements and the El Nino/La Nina phenomenon all contributed to the extended weather predictions.

“Doing a five-day forecast or a seven-day forecast you can get an accuracy of up to 90 per cent, or they can be as low as 60 per cent,” Mr Farhand said.

“We’re basing around 75 per cent (accuracy), that’s very good up to a year out.”

Mr Farhand dealt with the largely sceptical reaction to the predictions, which he openly admits can be wrong, if only slightly, by providing real-life examples online from major music festivals and sporting events indicating the differences between the predictions and the actual weather conditions on the day.

“Gold Coast Big Day Out, we got all of it right except for the rain: we said it would be ‘mostly fine’ but it was nine millimetres of rain,” he said.

“That’s to prove we can be wrong, but if you look at the temperature and humidity it’s all correct.”

Currently the business provides services to the public on a largely free credit-per-prediction system (assessing weather conditions for an upcoming family picnic or outdoor wedding) plus commercial and industrial clients ranging from radio and news broadcasters to wedding and event organisers.

Raising capital has been the business’ greatest challenge, and after personally investing $200,000 (and plenty of blood, sweat and tears along with his partners Anthony Houghton and John Agostini) Mr Farhand hopes to provide free personalised weather via smartphone apps to users worldwide following a deal with the world’s largest mobile phone company, China Mobile and listed tech outfit, SmartTrans.

Event Weather recently expanded its Australian coverage to 12 locations after winning a WA iAward in July celebrating innovation in the ICT industry.