Introduction

Researchers have long suspected that bad weather can put people in a bad mood – and this can spill over into how customers evaluate businesses. A growing body of evidence from peer-reviewed studies, psychology research, and industry analyses confirms that inclement weather often leads to more negative customer feedback. Below we summarize key findings, methodologies, and conclusions from notable studies across hospitality, retail, and service contexts.

Bad Weather and Restaurant Reviews (Hospitality Industry)

Study Overview: Milos Bujisic and colleagues (2019) conducted a series of studies to examine how weather affects restaurant customer feedback. The first study analyzed comment cards from 32 Florida restaurants (part of a national fast-casual chain) and matched each day’s feedback with local weather data​ehe.osu.edu. Comments were rated on a sentiment scale from 1 (very negative) to 5 (very positive), and 14 weather variables (rain, temperature, humidity, etc.) were considered.

Key Findings: Even after accounting for factors like service and food quality, rainy days had a strong impact on negative feedback. Customers were far more likely to leave bad reviews on days with unpleasant weather: the odds of a patron leaving a “very negative” comment (versus a “very positive” one) were nearly 2.9 times higher on rainy days compared to dry days​ehe.osu.edu. In short, “bad weather… may result in more than the usual bad reviews”, even if nothing else went wrong during the meal​ehe.osu.edu. Other weather factors also correlated with negativity. In the Florida data, hotter temperatures led to more negative comments (perhaps due to discomfort), and unusually high barometric pressure – which in Florida often accompanies heat – likewise was linked to negative remarks​ehe.osu.edu. These three factors (rain, heat, high pressure) stood out as significant influencers of sentiment, while many other weather variables showed no effect​ehe.osu.edu.

Mood as the Mediator: Follow-up experiments in the same study helped explain why weather affects reviews. In one online survey, 158 restaurant-goers nationwide described the weather before a recent dining visit, reported their mood, and then gave a “word-of-mouth” rating of the experience (how likely they’d recommend the restaurant)​ehe.osu.edu. The results indicated that weather influences customer mood, which in turn colors their evaluations. Participants who experienced pleasant weather before dining tended to report better moods, and those in a better mood gave more positive ratings of the restaurant – even though the weather itself had no direct connection to the food or service​ehe.osu.edu. In a third study focusing on regions with variable climates (Midwest, Northeast, Northwest), 107 people were surveyed after dining out in either pleasant or unpleasant weather (very cold, raining, or snowing)​ehe.osu.edu. Again, pleasant weather elevated consumers’ moods, leading to higher satisfaction with the meal and more favorable word-of-mouth, whereas diners who braved bad weather reported worse moods and less positive experiences​ehe.osu.edu.

Conclusions and Implications: This research (published in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research) concluded that while weather isn’t the biggest determinant of customer satisfaction, it does have a measurable influence on sentiment​ehe.osu.edu. Bad weather can essentially “poison the well” by putting customers (and even staff) in a sour mood that makes any shortcomings seem worse​wasserstrom.com. The authors suggest that restaurant managers should be aware of this bias and not overreact to every rainy-day complaint​ehe.osu.edu. Instead, they can counteract gloomy-weather moods with simple tactics – for example, “offer a free drink or play more upbeat music” on dreary days to boost morale​ehe.osu.edu. Managers should also coach staff not to let a rainy day dampen their hospitality, since “a rainy day may put employees in a bad mood and that will affect their service” (which then further impacts reviews)​ehe.osu.edu. In short, a little awareness and empathy on stormy days can help offset the tendency for “It’s raining complaints”​wasserstrom.com​wasserstrom.com.

Weather and Online Hotel Reviews (Travel/Hospitality Industry)

Study Overview: A large-scale analysis by Yaniv Dover (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Leif Brandes (U. of Lucerne) published in 2022 examined 12 years of online hotel reviews to see if the weather on the day a review is written affects its tone​jpost.com. This study analyzed 340,000 anonymous hotel reviews linked to about 3 million bookings, matching each review with the local weather conditions at the reviewer’s location on the day of writing​jpost.com. (Notably, they controlled for the weather during the actual hotel stay to isolate the post-trip weather effect​jpost.com.) The researchers used a statistical model to account for both the decision to leave a review and the content of the review​jpost.com. They also applied automated sentiment analysis to the review texts to quantify positivity or negativity​jpost.com.

Key Findings: The results were striking – even when evaluating a past experience, the weather at the moment of writing had a significant influence on reviewer behavior and sentiment. On rainy days, people were more likely to sit down and post a review at all, and those reviews tended to be more negative. In fact, 6.5% more reviews are written on rainy days, and these reviews on average give ratings about 0.1 stars lower than reviews written on comparable clear-weather days​jpost.com. This drop in rating may sound small, but across thousands of reviews it is substantial – the researchers note that “bad weather… reduces rating scores enough to nearly demote the hotel from a five-star to a four-star rating” in aggregate​jpost.com. In other words, a wave of weather-induced grumpiness can drag down a hotel’s average score. Additionally, bad-weather reviews were longer and more detailed, often with a more critical tone​jpost.com. Text analysis confirmed a “significant reduction in reviewer positivity and happiness” on rainy-day reviews, even though reviewers tended to write more (perhaps venting their frustrations or being more nit-picky)​jpost.com. Importantly, the effect was independent of the weather during the stay – even if a guest’s actual hotel visit was during sunny weather, if they happened to write the review later on a gloomy day back home, their recollections skewed more negative​jpost.com. This suggests the mood induced by current weather can color one’s memory of a past experience (e.g. remembering the hotel in a harsher light if it’s pouring rain while you write the review).

Conclusions and Implications: This study (published in Journal of Consumer Research) provides robust evidence that contextual factors like weather can bias online customer feedback​jpost.com. The authors frame this as “offline context influences online reviews” – an important consideration for businesses and review platforms​jpost.com. For platform operators (like TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.), the findings suggest that incorporating contextual data (such as the weather or time of review) might improve algorithms for detecting or adjusting for bias in ratings​jpost.com. For the hospitality industry, it’s a reminder that not all negative reviews are purely a reflection of service quality; some are literally a case of “rainy-day blues.” As Dover explained, this research shows “for the first time how our external physical environment – in this case the weather – can be a factor in our online judgments.”​jpost.com Understanding these patterns could help hotels and service businesses manage reputation: for example, if a cluster of bad reviews appears and you notice they were all written during a big snowstorm, it might warrant a bit of leniency in interpreting the feedback. Overall, the study underscores the psychological truth that human evaluations are not made in a vacuum – incidental factors like weather can subconsciously sway our opinions.

Broader Insights from Psychology and Retail Contexts

The link between weather, mood, and consumer sentiment is also supported by broader behavioral research and industry observations:

• Mood and Judgment: Classic psychology studies demonstrate that weather-driven mood shifts can influence how people evaluate anything – even their own life satisfaction. In a seminal experiment, Schwarz & Clore (1983) found that people rated their overall happiness lower on rainy days (when they were unwittingly in a worse mood) than on sunny days. Once participants were made aware that the weather might be affecting their feelings, this effect disappeared​pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov​pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. This “mood as information” phenomenon helps explain why customers might be harsher critics when the weather is gloomy: they subconsciously “feel bad” and interpret that feeling as dissatisfaction with the product or service, unless they attribute it to the weather.

• Retail Spending and Weather: Weather doesn’t just affect expressed sentiments – it can alter consumer behavior in retail settings as well. A 2010 study in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services found that sunlight had a positive effect on consumer mood and spending. As exposure to sunshine increased, negative affect (bad mood) decreased, and consumer spending tended to increase accordingly​researchgate.net. The researchers confirmed this across three studies, including field data and lab experiments, pinpointing mood as the mediating factor​researchgate.net. This suggests that on dreary days, shoppers not only feel less happy but may also be less inclined to spend – a pattern consistent with the idea that foul weather can dampen overall customer enthusiasm.

• Industry Observations: Some industry reports and analyses echo these findings. For example, a weather analytics study for retail found that sales patterns can shift with weather changes – one analysis noted that both very sunny days and rainy days saw higher retail sales compared to mild cloudy days​researchgate.net. The interpretation was that certain weather extremes drive consumers to specific activities (e.g. people might go shopping at a mall on a rainy day when outdoor plans are ruined, or shop on a beautiful day to enjoy an outing, whereas indifferent gray weather might not motivate them either way). While this insight is about sales, not sentiment, it reinforces that customer behavior and decision-making are weather-sensitive. In service industries (like hospitality, travel, event services), managers increasingly recognize weather as a factor in customer satisfaction metrics. Studies in tourism research advise controlling for weather in customer satisfaction surveys, since destination ratings can be “distorted” by whether a visitor happened to hit a rainy week or a heat wave during their stay​researchgate.net​researchgate.net. In other words, a resort might receive lower scores not because of any operational failing, but simply because guests experienced poor weather – a reminder to “remove uncontrollable factors” like climate when benchmarking service quality​researchgate.net.

Key Takeaways

• Bad Weather Breeds Bad Reviews: Across hospitality studies, customers tend to leave more negative remarks during bad weather. Rain, storms, or uncomfortably hot conditions can significantly increase the likelihood of complaints and lower satisfaction ratings​ehe.osu.edu​jpost.com. This effect has been documented in settings from quick-service restaurants (comment card feedback) to hotel review websites.

• Mood is the Mechanism: Inclement weather doesn’t directly ruin a meal or a hotel stay that already happened, but it puts consumers in a worse mood, which in turn colors their perceptions. Research shows that weather-driven mood shifts lead to more critical evaluations and less generosity in feedback​ehe.osu.edu​ehe.osu.edu. Conversely, pleasant weather boosts mood and tends to result in more favorable reviews and word-of-mouth.

• Wider Applicability: The influence of weather on sentiment is a general psychological phenomenon. Sunshine can brighten moods and lead to more positive consumer behaviors, while gloomier weather can have the opposite effect​researchgate.net. Customers might not realize their bad mood is weather-related and instead attribute it to the product or service (a form of misattribution). This can skew feedback in many service contexts, from retail shopping experiences to tourism satisfaction.

• Practical Responses: Businesses cannot control the weather, but they can mitigate its effects on customer sentiment. Being aware of “weather bias” in feedback is the first step – e.g., don’t overreact to a cluster of bad reviews that all came in during a hurricane. Managers in hospitality are advised to implement mood-lifting strategies on bad-weather days (e.g. offering freebies, extra hospitality, upbeat environment) to counteract the dip in customer mood​ehe.osu.edu. Additionally, staff should be coached to maintain high service levels even when they themselves might feel the drag of a rainy day​ehe.osu.edu.

• Consider Context in Feedback Management: For those analyzing customer feedback (whether online reviews, comment cards, or satisfaction surveys), these findings highlight the importance of contextual data. Weather is an external factor that can bias feedback, so savvy companies and platforms might adjust their expectations or algorithms accordingly​jpost.com. For instance, future review platforms could flag or factor in weather data when analyzing ratings – treating a 4-star review written during a blizzard as perhaps equivalent to a 4.1-star on a normal day. The overarching lesson is that consumer sentiment doesn’t occur in isolation: understanding situational influences like weather can lead to more fair, accurate interpretations of customer feedback.

Sources:

• Bujisic, M. et al. (2019). “It’s Raining Complaints!” – Study linking bad weather to negative restaurant comment cards (Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research)​ehe.osu.edu​ehe.osu.edu​ehe.osu.edu​ehe.osu.edu.

• Dover, Y. & Brandes, L. (2022). “Offline Context Affects Online Reviews: The Effect of Post-Consumption Weather.” Journal of Consumer Research – Large-scale analysis of hotel reviews showing weather on the review day impacts review likelihood and tone​jpost.com​jpost.com​jpost.com.

• Murray, K. et al. (2010). “The Effect of Weather on Consumer Spending.” Journal of Retailing & Consumer Services – Experiments showing sunlight reduces negative affect and increases spending​researchgate.net.

• Schwarz, N. & Clore, G. (1983). “Mood, Misattribution, and Judgments of Well-Being.” (Psychology) – Classic study demonstrating weather-induced mood affects subjective judgments​pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov​pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

• Industry commentary and analyses on weather’s impact on consumer behavior and satisfaction: e.g. Wasserstrom hospitality blog (2019)​wasserstrom.com​wasserstrom.com; Jerusalem Post summary of Dover’s study​jpost.com; tourism satisfaction research noting weather effects​researchgate.net​researchgate.net.