1. A geospatial event forecasting engine, comprising: a boundary component for establishing a geospatial boundary and a grid containing a plurality of cells within said boundary; a layer component for establishing at least one layer imposed upon the grid, the layer being indicative of geospatial characteristics of at least one variable of interest; a proximity component for identifying a proximity measurement of a cell element for each cell to the variable of interest, and for indexing said proximity measurement for each cell; a signature derivation component for receiving geospatial information related to one or more past events of at least one event type, including location information for said one or more past events, said signature derivation component further identifying and indexing a proximity measurement from the location information for each of said one or more events to the at least one variable of interest, and deriving a signature pattern for said event type; and an event likelihood determinant component for determining a level of signature match between said derived signature pattern and at least one cell of said plurality of cells through comparison with said proximity measurement.