| Type | Corporation |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1995 |
| Founder(s) | Dr. Jeff Masters |
| Headquarters | Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States |
| Website | wunderground.com |
Weather Underground is a commercial weather service that provides real-time weather information via the Internet. Weather Underground provides weather reports for most major cities across the world on its Web site, as well as local weather reports for newspapers and Web sites. Most of its United States information comes from the National Weather Service (NWS), as information from that agency is within the public domain by federal law. The Web site is available in many languages, and an ad-free version of the site with additional features is available for an annual fee.
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Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it was founded in 1995 as an offshoot of the University of Michigan's Internet weather database. The name is a reference to the 1960s militant radical student group the Weather Underground, which also originated at the University of Michigan.
Jeff Masters, then a PhD 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. By 1992, they claim that the two servers they used were the most popular service on the Internet. In 1993 they initiated a project to bring Internet weather into K-12 classrooms.
In 1995 Weather Underground, Inc. evolved as a commercial entity separate from the university.[1] 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; WU also provides weather reports for some newspapers (including the San Francisco Chronicle) and the Google search engine.
In October 2008, Jeff Masters reported that the site was #2 in Internet Weather for 2008.[2]
Blogs are one of the main features in Weather Underground, allowing users of the site to create blogs about weather, everyday life and anything else. Dr. Jeff Masters started the first blog on April 14, 2005,[3] and he now posts blog entries nearly every day.
Weather Underground also uses observations from members with automated personal weather stations (PWS).[4]
The service distributes Internet radio feeds of NOAA Weather Radio stations from across the country, as provided by users. The Associated Press uses Weather Underground to provide national weather summaries.[5]
Weather Underground now has a couple of Google Chrome extensions, iGoogle apps, and apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.