The Magic Of Revisions: How That Abysmal “Snowfall” Quarter Of 2015 Became 3.2% GDP

Remember when in January of 2015, after a bout of heavy snowfall and cold weather across, everyone was certain that Q1 GDP would be a disaster? If not, here is a reminder from the WSJ:
Brace for blizzards and other bad weather to hit the economy again this winter, though perhaps not as deeply as last year. The forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers on Thursday said heavy snowfall pounding the Northeast and parts of the Midwest will subtract 0.4 percentage point from gross domestic product growth in the first quarter. Last year was much worse, with a barrage of bad weather across a wider swath of the country taking an estimated 1.4 percentage point off growth in GDP, the broadest measure of economic output. ‘The major snowstorms that hit the Chicago and Boston areas earlier this month yielded larger contributions to the snowfall index than did any snowfall totals in any county last February,’ the firm said in a note to clients. ‘But outside of these areas, every other county’s contribution in the top 100 is lower this February than last February…at least given our assumptions for the balance of the month.’

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Jul 28, 2017.