Weather Underground is a commercial
weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmos ...
service providing real-time
weather information over the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
. Weather Underground 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
The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the ...
(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. Weather Underground is owned by
The Weather Company
The Weather Company is a weather forecasting and information technology company that owns and operates weather.com and Weather Underground. The Weather Company has been a subsidiary of the Watson & Cloud Platform business unit of IBM since 2016 ...
, a subsidiary of
IBM.
History
The company is based in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
and was founded in 1995 as an offshoot of the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
Internet weather database. The name is a reference to the 1960s
radical left-wing militant organization the
Weather Underground
The Weather Underground was a far-left militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organized as a faction of Students for a Democr ...
, which also originated at the University of Michigan.
Jeff Masters, a
doctoral candidate in
meteorology
Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...
at the University of Michigan working under the direction of Professor Perry Samson, wrote a menu-based
Telnet
Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet contr ...
interface in 1991 that displayed
real-time
Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...
weather information around the world. In 1993, they recruited Alan Steremberg and initiated a project to bring Internet weather into
K–12
K–12, from kindergarten to 12th grade, is an American English expression that indicates the range of years of publicly supported primary and secondary education found in the United States, which is similar to publicly supported school grades ...
classrooms. Weather Underground president Alan Steremberg wrote "Blue Skies" for the project, a graphical Mac
Gopher
Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...
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. 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
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
; Weather Underground also provides weather reports for some newspapers, including the ''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...
'' and the
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
search engine. Alan Steremberg also worked on the early development of the Google search engine with Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
In October 2008, Jeff Masters reported that the site was No. 2 for Internet weather information in 2008.
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
The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather foreca ...
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
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of web data to understand and optimize web usage. Web analytics is not just a process for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool for business and market research and ...
providers
Alexa
Alexa may refer to: Technology
*Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon
* Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service
* Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture camera
People
* Alexa (name), a given name a ...
and
SimilarWeb rate the site as the 117th and 98th most-visited site in the United States, respectively, as of July 2015.
SimilarWeb rates the site as the second most visited weather website globally, attracting more than 47 million visitors per month.
The Weather Company also uses the site's San Francisco headquarters as a regional office.
The site popularity also helped launch a television show hosted by meteorologist
Mike Bettes
Michael Bettes (born January 9, 1972) is an American television meteorologist and storm chaser who works for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a co-host of '' AMHQ: America's Morning Headquarters''. He hosts Weather Underground TV ...
, which airs on
The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather foreca ...
from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET.
On October 28, 2015, Jeff Masters noted that IBM had officially announced an agreement to acquire
The Weather Company
The Weather Company is a weather forecasting and information technology company that owns and operates weather.com and Weather Underground. The Weather Company has been a subsidiary of the Watson & Cloud Platform business unit of IBM since 2016 ...
business-to-business, 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
Entertainment Studios, Inc., also known as Allen Media Group, is an American media and entertainment company based in Los Angeles. Owned and founded in 1993 by businessman Byron Allen, the company was initially involved in the production and ...
in 2018. The deal was finalized on January 29, 2016.
On October 3, 2019, Jeff Masters announced that he would be leaving Weather Underground.
Blogs
Web logs (
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
s) 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, and he posts blog entries nearly every day. From 2007 through early 2017
Richard B. Rood wrote blogs on
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
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."
On April 3, 2017 Weather Underground ended all Member blogs, WUMail, SMS alerts, NOAA Weather Radio rebroadcast and Aviation.
Services
Weather Underground also uses observations from members with automated
personal weather stations (PWS). Weather Underground uses observations from over 250,000 personal weather stations worldwide.
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. 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.
The service previously distributed
Internet radio
Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...
feeds of
NOAA Weather Radio
NOAA Weather Radio NWR; also known as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is an automated 24-hour network of VHF FM weather radio stations in the United States (U.S.) that broadcast weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Servi ...
stations from across the country, as provided by users, and had
Weather Underground Braille Page
The
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
uses Weather Underground to provide national weather summaries.
Weather Underground has several
Google Chrome extensions and applications for
iPhone,
iPad
The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...
and
Android including FullScreenWeather.com, a redirect to a full screen weather viewer tied into OpenStreetMap. There was an app developed for
Roku
Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services.
The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduced ...
devices, which has been deleted.
In February 2015, Weather Underground released an
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
app called Storm. This app is universal, and can be used on both iPhone and iPad. Other apps by Weather Underground include WunderStation for iPad and WunderMap for
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
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.
On December 31, 2018, Weather Underground ceased offering its popular
application programming interface (API) for weather data, further reducing the breadth of its services.
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.
See also
*
WUHU (software)
*
Weather Underground of Hong Kong
Weather Underground of Hong Kong () is a non-profit website established in 1995 and directed by Clarence Fong Chi-kong.
The website provides a wide range of information related to weather and climate. Air temperature, relative humidity, barometri ...
References
External links
*
UM-Weather the original service from which Weather Underground branched
{{IBM
Meteorological companies
Companies based in San Francisco
American news websites
Meteorological data and networks
IBM subsidiaries
IBM cloud services
1995 establishments in Michigan
Internet properties established in 1995
2012 mergers and acquisitions