Ellinwood Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 http://www.wundergro...l?entrynum=2143 From Jeff Masters: The Weather Channel is committed to keeping the Weather Underground brand and the web site in its current form. Weather Underground CEO Alan Steremberg will remain in charge, and our meteorologists and developers will continue to create the ground-breaking weather products that we're renowned for. The plan is to make both wunderground.com and weather.com stronger, by sharing content and infrastructure. Many Weather Underground features, such as our Personal Weather Station data, WunderMap, and my blog, are scheduled to also appear on the weather.com web site in the coming months. My blog's main home will continue to be wunderground.com, and I have been asked to continue to write the same variety of science-based posts on hurricanes, extreme weather, and climate change that I've provided since 2005. I enjoy communicating weather science, and am pleased I will be able to do this for both wunderground and The Weather Channel, which has an audience about three times as large as wunderground's. ...sigh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astarck Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 ...sigh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hooralph Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 TWC just had to be losing too many eyeballs every day to wunderground and realized they'd never get them by building better products. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phlwx Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 sucky news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 ick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeatMiser Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 ugh... Now when we look at Wunderground we will see a minimum of 10 advertisements for useless crap. It will be a nice touch by the weather channel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Wood Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 I'll set the Over/Under on "Coast Guard Alaska" and "Lifeguard" ads on every personal weather station page at 7.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phlwx Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 ugh... Now when we look at Wunderground we will see a minimum of 10 advertisements for useless crap. It will be a nice touch by the weather channel. ^ This is the part I'm not looking forward to. Wunderground's lack of ads and forward thinking on graphics/maps/content makes it a much better experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 I think TWC has been better since the NBC deal if not prior. I very rarely flip it on but like many of the personalities there. But, it is probably unfortunate to have such a hit small-scale startup go super big. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Wood Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 I see Weather Underground as more oriented towards weather geeks (as far as tools) and Weather.com towards the casual person. I guess the only real loss would be if Wunderground suddenly became less wx geek friendly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isopycnic Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 This can only be seen as a failure. Ugh. I wonder if they will keep the "free service" for folks that provide PWS data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hm8 Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Eh, I'm not too unhappy about this right now. We'll see if there are really any drastic changes to either company/website, my guess is there won't be. So now it's pretty much AccuWx vs. The World Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Marusak Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 well, i just saw the news as well. this will be an interesting development on the industry as it looks like TWC, imho, is now starting to act like MS, trying to improve its product and market-share with acquisition instead of internal development. Accu-wx also did the same a couple of years ago with weatherdata, as i recall. i wonder which one of the large companies will make the next acquisition move, and what type of move it would be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinwood Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 I see Weather Underground as more oriented towards weather geeks (as far as tools) and Weather.com towards the casual person. I guess the only real loss would be if Wunderground suddenly became less wx geek friendly. This is probably my biggest concern. I never use TWC's site, and if they change anything on wunderground it will most likely be a detriment to those who grew to use the site because it is more tailored to the weather-enthusiasts and meteorologists than the general public. Call it paranoia, but I don't really see how the users will see a net benefit from this buyout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hm8 Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 you'd think TWC would be smart enough not to lose the audience they just acquired by newb-ifying wunderground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derecho! Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 I see Weather Underground as more oriented towards weather geeks (as far as tools) and Weather.com towards the casual person. I guess the only real loss would be if Wunderground suddenly became less wx geek friendly. Any marketing director can (and will) count the number of weather geeks vs. casual people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OKpowdah Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Pretty obvious why it had to be done ... that free Euro model data they offer must be killing them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hm8 Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 FWIW, I just got this email from Perry Sampson, a founder of Wunderground and a professor in the Atmospheric Oceanic and Space Sciences (AOSS) college at the University of Michigan (where I attend) Dear Colleagues, This afternoon The Weather Underground was acquired by The Weather Channel. The Weather Underground has its roots in AOSS in the late 80's as a telnet session (dubbed UM-Weather) so I could get weather data before http://www.wunderground.com. Today The Weather Underground has grown to be one of the top 100 most visited web sites in the United States and is expected to grow even faster after the acquisition. I hope you will join me in celebrating this milestone. It is truly amazing what an come out of undergraduate projects at Michigan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turtlehurricane Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Bad news, best to keep the weather channel contagion in one spot. Their storm coverage is decent, but they don't cover the weather usually, it's clearly all about the bucks to them. I can't blame them for that but I don't like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxmeddler Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Not too happy... As a PWS owner and uploader for the past 5 years, I'm not too thrilled to see my data go to TWCC. I always saw WU as a science based company and using the data for science and record keeping (has the best record keeping out there I believe). Now my fear is it's just going to go for profit.. Sad day.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesse Ferrell - AccuWx Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Eh, I'm not too unhappy about this right now. We'll see if there are really any drastic changes to either company/website, my guess is there won't be. So now it's pretty much AccuWx vs. The World And then there were two... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapturedNature Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 This is too bad but hopefully they will do what they say and keep it independent. I've always liked WU since it was part of the University's site. I lost the TWC in the 90s to commercialism so hopefully that doesn't happen again to another resource. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brettjrob Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 All I really care about is whether: 1) I get to keep my $5/yr. subscription to the only decent portal on the web for METARs (including historical) and NWS forecasts 2) They don't ditch the classic view I've been clinging to Not optimistic on either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinwood Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 All I really care about is whether: 1) I get to keep my $5/yr. subscription to the only decent portal on the web for METARs (including historical) and NWS forecasts 2) They don't ditch the classic view I've been clinging to Not optimistic on either. I've found the wunderground re-vamp to be alright overall, but the navigation of the different radar sites and products on the classic site is much better than the new one. I will be sad if they ditch the classic site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapturedNature Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 All I really care about is whether: 1) I get to keep my $5/yr. subscription to the only decent portal on the web for METARs (including historical) and NWS forecasts 2) They don't ditch the classic view I've been clinging to Not optimistic on either. In case things don't work out, try this for METARs: http://vortex.plymouth.edu/sa_parse-u.html As far as I know, WU stopped using the NWS forecasts and starting issuing their own based on PWS data. That's similar to what TWC did when it stopped airing them many years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Lizard Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Master's doctorate was in "pollution meteorology", so it was clear what side of the AGW debate he would be on, and TWC's parent, GE, looks to be the biggest corporate winner if AGW turns out to be fact, and I don't think NBC or TWC's coverage isn't affected by their ownership, in numerous ways, if wind power is heavily subsidized, as a maker of turbine generators, which run off the cleanest of the fossil fuels, natural gas, and as a manufacturer of railroad locomotives, which will gain increasing marketshare if diesel fuel is taxed. So, editorially, Masters should fit right in. I don't even remember my old Wunderground password, BTW. I would read Master's column if the tropics were active. His pre-doctorate work was tropical meteorology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brettjrob Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 In case things don't work out, try this for METARs: http://vortex.plymou...sa_parse-u.html As far as I know, WU stopped using the NWS forecasts and starting issuing their own based on PWS data. That's similar to what TWC did when it stopped airing them many years ago. If you use the classic site, the NWS ZFP still shows up at the top of your local page. That, along with the ability to see the closest four official METAR obs to your location on the left side, are what have kept me hooked all these years. Having a link to the AFD, daily records, and a table with sunrise/sunset times, moon phase, etc. all within a quick scroll down doesn't hurt, either. Thanks for the METAR link. It will do in a pinch. However, the elegance of the Wunderground system (with nicely-decoded hourly tables for dates all the way back to the 1950s in some cases) is second to none. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Lizard Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 In case things don't work out, try this for METARs: http://vortex.plymou...sa_parse-u.html As far as I know, WU stopped using the NWS forecasts and starting issuing their own based on PWS data. That's similar to what TWC did when it stopped airing them many years ago. I'm not kidding, never scientifically recorded it, but the NWS HGX forecasts provided for on the "Local on the 8'" segment was so clearly superior to TWC, and it seemed especially accute in Nowcast situations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamieOber Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 I think TWC has been better since the NBC deal if not prior. I very rarely flip it on but like many of the personalities there. But, it is probably unfortunate to have such a hit small-scale startup go super big. I watched them out of curiosity a bit ago and they had Cantore and the severe weather guy talking about an outbreak and they broke out the MJO (!). They did a nice job of explaining it in layperson's terms and why they were looking at it. I see Weather Underground as more oriented towards weather geeks (as far as tools) and Weather.com towards the casual person. I guess the only real loss would be if Wunderground suddenly became less wx geek friendly. That's what I think may happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapturedNature Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 Thanks for the METAR link. It will do in a pinch. However, the elegance of the Wunderground system (with nicely-decoded hourly tables for dates all the way back to the 1950s in some cases) is second to none. No problem. I love being able to see that hourly data going back. Years ago you paid through the nose for that data. BTW, my understanding is that they "reconstruct" METARs from hourly data reports prior to their being introduced in the early 90s. Before that it was SA's and SP's. I still haven't found an archive of those. I'd love to see raw SA's and round-ups though I don't mind the decoded form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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