Dive Brief:

• Restaurants and theaters and other entertainment venues likely took a hit this weekend because of winter storm Jonas that greatly impacted some Mid-Atlantic areas over the weekend, the Associated Press reports.

• But retailers will likely see revenues even out as people stocked up before the storm hit and will be back out in stores once the worst of it has passed and people shovel out. Shippers United Parcel Service and FedEx have limited service over the weekend anyway, and will likely fairly easily make up any losses as roads improve, though some packages were delayed.

• Overall, the storm’s economic damage could be as little as $350 million or as much as $850 million, and won’t be known until the data shakes out next month, Chris Christopher, a U.S. macroeconomist at data firm IHS Global Insight, told the Associated Press.

Dive Insight:

While retailers may see consumer spending shift to just before and after a major storm like the one we saw this past weekend, it’s usually a wash without much loss, Paul Walsh, VP of weather strategy and business meteorologist at The Weather Company, told Retail Dive.

In addition to staples like bread, milk, and eggs, research shows that people tend to stock up on alcoholic beverages, D batteries, soup, reading material, and padlocks, Walsh says. 

But retailers must look at their own customers' behavior around weather, noting that Wal-Mart a few years ago found, through attentive research, that strawberry Pop Tarts emerged as a common item for people preparing ahead of a hurricane.

“Retailers generally don’t make money from a storm like this,” Walsh says. “Their main mission is to stay in stock and be there for their customers, and sustain the demand and make the right decisions. Where it becomes really problematic is at restaurants and hotels because they can’t make up the lost revenue when people stay home.”