Weather-sensitive enterprises currently have few choices for managing their precipitation related risk, which is in sharp contrast to the choices available for managing temperature related risk. Many hurdles must be leapt to advance the weather risk market’s ability to provide mitigation of precipitation risk to the global economy. None is more limiting than existing constraints on accurately measuring the field of regional precipitation. Meaningful advancements in usefulness of surface based precipitation measurements will come soonest from programs that increase the spatial density of reliable measurements. Yet the spatial continuity that most weather sensitive end-users need will likely come with the implementation of reliable interpretation of radar measurements over regions. Ideas on how the weather risk market could use the combined surface and indirect measurement of precipitation require both meteorologists and market players to be creative.