Doing something about the weather

Recent developments in weather forecasting have created the potential for the operations research and management science (OR/MS) community to have a tremendous impact in distilling weather information into valuable decision tools. Weather-sensitive applications include transport, electric utilities, agriculture, and public emergency management. This article surveys existing research and practice using OR/MS tools to integrate weather forecasts in decision-making. Because the conditions that created the potential for OR/MS contributions—in particular an explosion in the amount of relevant forecast data—are quite recent, the amount of existing OR/MS work is modest. This article also describes promising but unexplored research opportunities for the OR/MS community.