Weather Service
Weather Underground
is a commercial
weather
service providing real-time
weather information
over the
Internet
. It provides weather reports for most major cities around the world on its Web site, as well as local weather reports for newspapers and third-party sites.
Its information comes from the
National Weather Service
(NWS), and over 250,000
personal weather stations
(PWS). The site is available in many languages, and customers can access an
ad-free
version of the site with additional features for an annual fee.
In February 2024, Weather Underground and its parent company,
The Weather Company
, became controlled by
Francisco Partners
.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
The company is based in
San Francisco
,
California
and was founded in 1995 as an offshoot of the
University of Michigan
internet weather database. The name is a reference to the 1960s
radical left-wing
militant
organization the
Weather Underground
, which also originated at the University of Michigan.
[2]
[3]
The name, formerly UM-Weather, was changed to Weather Underground in 1991 due to feedback from the
National Science Foundation
[4]
in response to Perry Samson's proposal for funding.
[3]
Weather Underground has since adopted the nickname Wunderground in addition to Weather Underground.
Jeff Masters, a
doctoral
candidate in
meteorology
at the University of Michigan working under the direction of Professor Perry Samson, wrote a menu-based
Telnet
interface in 1991 that displayed
real-time
weather information around the world. In 1993, they recruited Alan Steremberg and initiated a project to bring Internet weather into
K?12
classrooms. Weather Underground president Alan Steremberg wrote "Blue Skies" for the project, a graphical Mac
Gopher
client, which won several awards. When the Mosaic Web browser appeared, this provided a natural transition from "Blue Skies" to the Web.
In 1995 Weather Underground Inc. became a commercial entity separate from the university.
[5]
It has grown to provide weather for print sources, in addition to its online presence. In 2005, Weather Underground became the weather provider for the
Associated Press
; Weather Underground also provides weather reports for some newspapers, including the
San Francisco Chronicle
and the
Google
search engine.
[
citation needed
]
Alan Steremberg also worked on the early development of the Google search engine with Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
[6]
In October 2008, Jeff Masters reported that the site was No. 2 for Internet weather information in 2008.
[7]
In February 2010, Weather Underground launched FullScreenWeather.com, a full screen weather Web tool with integrated mapping and mobile device use in mind.
On July 2, 2012,
The Weather Channel
announced that it would acquire Weather Underground, which would become operated as part of The Weather Channel Companies, LLC, which was later renamed "
The Weather Company
". The Weather Underground web site continues to operate as a separate entity from The Weather Channel primary site,
weather.com
, with its existing staff retained. Third-party
web analytics
providers
Alexa
and
SimilarWeb
rate the site as the 117th and 98th most-visited site in the United States, respectively, as of July 2015.
[8]
[9]
SimilarWeb rates the site as the second most visited weather website globally, attracting more than 47 million visitors per month.
[9]
[10]
The Weather Company also uses the site's San Francisco headquarters as a regional office.
[11]
[12]
The site popularity also helped launch a television show hosted by meteorologist
Mike Bettes
, which aired on The Weather Channel from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET. The show was renamed
Weather Unfiltered
on May 13, 2024.
On October 28, 2015, Jeff Masters noted that
IBM
had officially announced an agreement to acquire The Weather Company's mobile and cloud-based Web properties, including Weather Underground, WSI, weather.com, and also the Weather Company brand. The Weather Channel television service remained a separate entity, later sold to
Entertainment Studios
in 2018.
[13]
The deal was finalized on January 29, 2016.
[14]
On October 3, 2019, Jeff Masters announced that he would be leaving Weather Underground.
[15]
On August 22, 2023, IBM agreed to sell The Weather Company to private equity firm Francisco Partners for an undisclosed sum.
[16]
After the acquisition of the company was completed in February 2024, Weather Underground also became controlled by the American private equity firm.
Blogs
[
edit
]
Web logs (
blogs
) were one of the main features in Weather Underground, allowing users of the site to create blogs about weather, everyday life and anything else. Jeff Masters started the first blog on April 14, 2005,
[17]
and he posts blog entries nearly every day. From 2007 through early 2017
Richard B. Rood
wrote blogs on
climate change
and societal response, with new entries on a weekly basis.
On October 14, 2016, the Wunderblog announced that it would be changing their name to Category 6, a name suggested by Jeff Masters. They decided on the name, because it "alludes to our deep fascination with all types of weather and climate extremes, including the many important facets of our changing climate", and "will provide all the insight and expert analysis needed to put the extreme events of our evolving 21st-century climate into context."
[18]
On April 3, 2017 Weather Underground ended all Member blogs, WUMail, SMS alerts, NOAA Weather Radio rebroadcast and Aviation.
[19]
Services
[
edit
]
Weather Underground also uses observations from members with automated
personal weather stations
(PWS).
[20]
Weather Underground uses observations from over 250,000 personal weather stations worldwide.
[21]
The Weather Underground's WunderMap overlays weather data from personal weather stations and official National Weather Service stations on a
Mapbox
Map base and provides many interactive and dynamically updated weather and environmental layers.
[22]
On November 15, 2017, users were notified by email that their worldwide, user-provided weather cameras would cease to be available on December 15, 2017. However, on December 11, 2017 users received another email from Weather Underground announcing that they were reversing their position and would not be discontinuing the service based on significant user feedback.
[23]
The service previously distributed
Internet radio
feeds of
NOAA Weather Radio
stations from across the country, as provided by users, and had a Weather Underground Braille Page.
The
Associated Press
uses Weather Underground to provide national weather summaries.
[24]
Weather Underground has several
Google Chrome
extensions
[25]
and applications for
iPhone
,
iPad
and
Android
[26]
including FullScreenWeather.com, a redirect to a full screen weather viewer tied into OpenStreetMap. There was an app developed for
Roku
devices, which has been deleted.
[27]
In February 2015, Weather Underground released an
iOS
app called Storm.
[28]
This app is universal, and can be used on both iPhone and iPad. Other apps by Weather Underground include WunderStation
[29]
for iPad and WunderMap
[30]
for
iOS
and
Android
. In 2017, Weather Underground removed support for "Storm," in favor of the "Storm Radar" app released by The Weather Channel Interactive in June 2017.
[31]
On December 31, 2018, Weather Underground ceased offering its popular
application programming interface
(API) for weather data, further reducing the breadth of its services.
[32]
On September 10, 2019, Weather Underground announced the discontinuation of its Email Forecast Program as of October 1, 2019, continuing the reduction in services noted above.
[33]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Francisco Partners Completes Acquisition of The Weather Company"
.
Francisco Partners
. Retrieved
2024-02-26
.
- ^
Schwartz, John; Stelter, Brian (July 3, 2012).
"Fans Howl After Weather Site Buys Out Rival"
.
The New York Times
.
- ^
a
b
Dougherty, Evan (February 16, 2017).
"Wunderground.com: Democratizing weather"
.
Engineering Research News
. University of Michigan.
Archived
from the original on 2022-09-29
. Retrieved
April 4,
2024
.
He chose Weather Underground, a "tongue in cheek" nod to the 1960s radical student organization that also was founded at U-M. "I regretted that, immediately," said Samson. "That was the era where you could name a company Yahoo and get away with it," Masters said. "So sure, why not name your company after a terrorist group? Later on, when I watched the documentary about the Weather Underground... those guys were not so great."
- ^
"NSF Award Search: Award # 9554211 - The Weather Underground: Application of Computer Technology to Science in Michigan Secondary Schools"
.
www.nsf.gov
. Retrieved
2024-04-04
.
- ^
Weather Underground, Inc.
The First Internet Weather Service.
Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
- ^
https://stevenlevy.com/07/03/notes-from-weather-underground-a-paleo-google-enterprise-gets-bought
. Retrieved
2021-09-14
.
- ^
Jeff Master's WunderBlog, 10-27-2008
Heavy Internet Weather
Retrieved on 2008-10-27.
- ^
"wunderground.com Site Overview"
. Alexa
. Retrieved
30 July
2015
.
- ^
a
b
"Wunderground.com Analytics"
. SimilarWeb
. Retrieved
30 July
2015
.
- ^
"Top 50 sites in the world for News And Media > Weather"
. SimilarWeb
. Retrieved
30 July
2015
.
- ^
Weather Channel buys Weather Underground, brand stays
.
PaidContent.org
. Retrieved July 4, 2012.
- ^
Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog: Wunderground.com sold to The Weather Channel Companies
,
Weather Underground
, July 2, 2012.
- ^
"Weather Underground Bought by IBM, by Dr. Jeff Masters, October 28, 2015"
.
- ^
"IBM Finalizes Deal for Weather Channel Product and Tech Business"
.
TheWrap
. January 29, 2016.
- ^
"Jeff Masters Is Leaving Weather Underground in November"
.
www.wunderground.com
.
- ^
Field, Hayden (August 22, 2023).
"IBM selling The Weather Channel and the rest of its weather business"
.
CNBC
. Retrieved
August 22,
2023
.
- ^
Weather Underground, Inc.
Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog.
Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
- ^
"Our New Name: Category 6™"
. Weather Underground. October 14, 2016
. Retrieved
October 15,
2016
.
- ^
"WU feature and product updates"
. March 2, 2017. Archived from
the original
on March 2, 2017.
- ^
Weather Underground, Inc.
Personal Weather Station.
Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
- ^
Weather Underground, Inc.
Personal Weather Station Network.
Retrieved on 2017-02-20
- ^
Weather Underground, Inc.
WunderMap
Retrieved on 2015-02-01.
- ^
"Wunderground.com"
. Retrieved
2017-12-07
.
- ^
WEATHER UNDERGROUND For The Associated Press.
Weather Search
Retrieved on 2009-10-28.
Archived
2009-10-29 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"Weather Underground - Chrome Web Store"
. Retrieved
2015-05-14
.
- ^
"Weather Underground - Android Apps on Google Play"
.
Play.google.com
. Retrieved
2015-05-14
.
- ^
"Weather Underground for Roku"
.
Wunderground.com
. Retrieved
2015-05-14
.
- ^
"Storm by Weather Underground | Weather Underground"
.
Wunderground.com
. Retrieved
2015-05-14
.
- ^
"WunderStation by Weather Underground | Weather Underground"
.
Wunderground.com
. Retrieved
2015-05-14
.
- ^
"WunderMap® by Weather Underground"
.
Wunderground.com
. Retrieved
2015-05-14
.
- ^
"Storm Radar FAQ"
.
Wunderground.com
. Retrieved
2017-05-19
.
- ^
Roche, Tim.
"End of Services for the Weather Underground API"
.
The Weather Underground
. Weatherunderground.com. Archived from
the original
on 2018-09-21
. Retrieved
2019-09-05
.
- ^
"End of Services for the Weather Underground Email Forecasts"
. weatherunderground.com
. Retrieved
2019-09-30
.
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[
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]
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