Moreover, differences in the underlying weather variables being forecasted can confound forecasting performance.
However, there was at least some good news for Britain, as retailers benefited by thwarting the disastrous performance that had been forecast for the sector over the Christmas period.
Excluding auto sales, which can swing widely from month to month, retail sales rose 0.5percentt in November, a stronger performance than the 0.2percentt rise economists were forecasting.
Other developed-world stockmarkets have been surging too; Tokyo has managed a double-digit gain this year.Wall Street's rally is caused only partly by the performance of the domestic economy, which is forecast to grow by a modest 2.0% this year.
French Connection said: "The first-half retail sales performance is now forecast to be materially lower than expected … The financial performance for the year is now expected to be below the current market expectations".
One alternative was to move the performance outside, but a big thunderstorm had been forecast.
That's worse than had been forecast, and is the poorest performance since 1982.
The first is forecasting.
Overall, its performance was better than analysts had forecast.
