How to judge the quality and value of weather forecast products

In order to decide whether or not a weather service supplier is giving good value for money we need to monitor the quality of the forecasts and the us e that is made of the forecasts to estimate their value. A number of verifi cation statistics are examined to measure the quality of forecasts - includ ing Miss Rate, False Alarm Rate, the Peirce Skill Score and the Odds Ratio Skill Score - and a means of testing the significance of these values is pr esented. In order to assess the economic value of the forecasts a value ind ex is suggested that takes into account the cost-loss ratio and forecast er rors. It is suggested that a combination of these quality and value statist ics could be used by weather forecast customers to choose the best forecast provider and to set limits for performance related contracts.