Five years of daily pest demand data across four states, matched against daily weather. Some of what the industry believes about weather and pests holds up. Some of it doesn't. Here is what survived — and what we threw out.
Each of these survived independent statistical review, a placebo control, replication across states, and a test against dozens of shuffled calendars. We publish the direction and the timing. We deliberately do not publish a single percentage, because two of our own models disagree on the size of the effect and we would rather you plan on the timing than on a number.
Rain floods colonies and pushes them indoors. The lift shows up from about day two. Modest, reliable, and pre-registered before we looked.
The strongest rain signal we have: demand stays elevated for roughly two weeks after a heavy event, with the back half of the first week the busiest in our main model.
A falling barometer in the growing season (March–October) is followed by a termite demand lift within days — exactly what swarm biology predicts. Holds under every way we tried to break it.
The classic post-rain swarm, visible in the data and confirmed by a second modelling method. Growing season only — outside it, the effect disappears.
Most demand-intelligence pitches stop at the good news. Ours doesn't, because you can check.
Weather tells you when a customer is more likely to be thinking about a pest. It does not tell you who. That's why PestSignal crosses these signals with your own history — who had ants before, who was quoted for termites last spring — instead of blasting a ZIP code.
A mosquito rule, a spring-opener rule, a soil-moisture rule, a storm-pause rule and a wildlife rain rule all looked real at first and failed on re-testing. They're gone. If a competitor is selling you one of them, ask to see their controls.
These are lifts in how many people go looking. Whether your company books the job is still up to your team, your pricing and your phone. We measure that separately, per company, and we don't publish a number until it's yours.
Four Southeastern and Southern states, 2021–2026. Ants and termites are the pests with the clearest weather signal. Other service lines mostly run on the calendar, not the forecast — and we say so on the demo rather than pretend otherwise.
| When you see | Window | What PestSignal does with it |
|---|---|---|
| Rain over 1″ in 72 hours in a market you serve | Days 2–14 | Moves your past ant inquiries, cancelled ant customers and unsold ant estimates in that market up the list, with the reason on the line. |
| Rain over 1″ or a pressure drop, March–October | Days 2–4 | Surfaces termite quotes that never booked and past termite customers — the highest-value calls of the month. |
| Nothing in the forecast | Ongoing | Your history still drives the list: renewals due, one-time jobs that should be plans, replies that came in overnight. |
Thirty minutes with Raphael. Bring a rough count of your customers and leads; he'll show you what a PestSignal morning looks like for a company your size.
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