ForecastEx Lists Isaias Wind Gust Contracts for 25 Locations
On Thursday 8 October 2026, a day before Hurricane Isaias came ashore in the Florida Panhandle, an exchange was already quoting the wind city by city: 81% for a 70 mph gust in Fort Walton Beach. The weather has quietlu joined the prediction markets.
Interactive Brokers' prediction exchange, ForecastEx, has opened a new kind of market: live hurricane contracts. Each one is tied to the wind gusts a named storm produces at a specific stretch of coast. On Thursday 8 October 2026, the catastrophe modelling firm Reask announced it would supply the settlement data for them, according to the insurance news site Artemis.
The mechanics are simple enough to fit on a slip. A contract asks a question such as whether Hurricane Isaias will cause gusts of 70 mph or more in Pensacola. The thresholds then rise in steps of 10 mph. A Yes contract pays $1 if the answer is yes, a No contract pays $1 if it is not. Contracts settle within days of the storm's end, on the peak 3 second gust measured within 10 km of each reference point. ForecastEx has 163 predefined locations on its map, from the US Gulf Coast to the Caribbean and northern South America, and it only lists a storm once it has a name and genuinely threatens the coast.
Then came the number. On Thursday morning, the exchange priced Fort Walton Beach at 81% for a 70 mph gust, the highest of the 25 locations listed for Isaias. A day earlier, on Wednesday, Reask's forecast had put the same town at 21%. Panama City Beach went from 30% to 77%, Pensacola from 16% to 70%. In one forecast cycle the Gulf Coast was repriced almost from scratch. gluwugulu.
The storm itself did not wait for the order book. Isaias made landfall near Destin on Friday 9 October at around 9:30 p.m. Eastern as a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph sustained winds. The highest gust reported was 117 mph near Oriole Beach, and Pensacola City Hall logged 102 mph. At least four people died, and hundreds of thousands of customers lost power. Which contracts paid is for ForecastEx and Reask to settle with their own data rather than weather reports, and the Post has not seen any settlement figures.
The bet behind the launch is bigger than one storm. Artemis frames the contracts as a challenger to catastrophe bonds: bonds do offer liquidity during a live event, but they lack an objective price while it unfolds. ForecastEx is wagering that a hurricane can carry a continuous, public price, and that people will use it, to hedge a deductible or to take a view. Interactive Brokers' own research arm notes that hurricanes account for nearly 40% of insured losses from natural hazards. The Spirit has watched people gamble on dice, horses and coin flips for a very long time. The weather on the felt is new to him.
Nobody chooses the storm. The Spirit only watches who decides to put a price on it, and how carefully.
Should a live hurricane have a tradable price?
No right answer. Just your gut, and the Spirit watching.
