Writers on the storm

TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs wants to know why so many business journalists believed Wal-Mart Stores Inc. earlier this week when it announced that January sales were hurt by the weather.

Fuchs wrote, “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a federal agency that compiles world weather data on land and ocean surfaces, and you can use that data to compare months. And let me tell you, the national weather overview of the United States, which is Wal-Mart’s major ‘region,’ shows some interesting stuff in January.

“The average temperature of January 2008 was 30.5 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.3 degrees cooler than the average temperature in 2007. Was that cold enough to keep shoppers inside or cold enough to spur people to go buy a new jacket? Part of the problem with using weather as a cause/effect in retailing is that it can be easily interpreted different ways.

“There are, of course, isolated circumstances when weather might be a factor in a retailer’s performance. If, say, a retailer was very regional and over one week in January in that particular region there was a blizzard that enameled all the malls in snow and ice brought business to a near standstill, well, I could swallow the excuse. A week of biblical flooding some spring in the backyard of another regional retailer? Well, sure. In these isolated circumstances, I can accept weather as something more than a sly formulation to deflect blame and attention.

“But this brings me back to Wal-Mart’s misdirection. Weather in the Midwest, South and Southeast, where Wal-Mart is exceptionally strong and where Reuters specifically said the company’s sales were effected, had what NOAA described as ‘near-normal’ temperatures.”

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