Walmart Q4 Earnings Preview: Don't Blame the Weather
G2 Weather Intelligence | February 18, 2026
Weather Signal: 44/100 (Neutral). Weather was not a material driver of Q4 results. Execution and macro matter more.
The Setup
On the surface, this looked like a messy quarter. Cold snaps, winter storms, atmospheric rivers, a late January freeze — the kind of pattern that usually shows up in earnings calls as a headwind.
Walk into tomorrow’s call and don’t be surprised if management references weather in category-level commentary. The pattern influenced merchandise performance — strong winter seasonal sales in the East, soft in the West.
But when you step back and look at the full quarter through the G2 Weather lens, the cleaner read is actually weather neutral at the consolidated level.
My Weather Signal score is 44 out of 100. Slightly negative, but well within range of neutral for a company the size of Walmart.
That’s not because the weather was calm. It wasn’t! It’s because the volatility offsets itself. November worked in their favor. December split regionally but cancelled out at the consolidated level. January created friction. But Walmart is big enough and diversified enough that those dynamics didn’t stack — they traded places.
How the Quarter Played Out
