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Wunderground.com sold to The Weather Channel Companies


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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..

I'm with you on this one. And the bad part is that I have scripts that pull my data (and others) from WU. I hope they don't start screwing around with all of that.

Screw the Weather Channel. They've got to be the sorriest excuse for a weather program I've ever seen.

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We'll see what happens to all the freebies we get from WU for sending them our PWS data.

I have a funny feeling.......

I know Tony, that's my concern. As long as they leave crap alone, I don't care, but if they start messing with my data as well as everyone else's, I can tell you, the s%^& going to hit the fan.

I can't imagine they would do that though. They get a LOT of data from us and it really wouldn't be in their best interest to mess with any of that.

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Well I wouldn't mind Crystal Egger saying, "Hey lets look at the Westmoreland Webcam" though lol

Maybe they see a value in the PWS data? It's got to be better than the algorithms they use to

guess at temps in outlying areas.

This x10 . If I was the owner of the weather channel, I would be salivating over all the real-time data. Although if I was the weather channel to begin with, it wouldn't have been ran so newbishly. I wish I had the money, I would form my own weather business and be a scientific as humanly possible and would make weather geeks proud!

and ditto to the Crystal Egger comment!

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Mass Email that went out to all the active PWS Owners today:

Dear Weather Station Owner,

As an invaluable member of our Personal Weather Station (PWS) community, I wanted you to be the first to know that Weather Underground, Inc. has become part of The Weather Channel Companies (TWCC). Your weather station data will remain an integral part of our forecast modelling, and we expect that the combined forecast technologies of the two companies will enable us to provide even more accurate custom forecasts for your station. The service that we provide PWS owners on wunderground.com will remain unchanged for now, and will only be improved in the long term.

With the increased audience reach that our union with TWCC provides, we hope to considerably expand our PWS community to further enhance the quality of our weather forecasts. With extra resources at our disposal, we will also be able to provide a greater level of support for our community members.

As always, we thank you for being part of our PWS network, and greatly appreciate all of the data you share with us. You can read my latest blog post for more information about the sale of wunderground to TWCC.

Kind regards,

Dr. Jeff Masters

Director of Meteorology

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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.

Funny, I cling to the classic view as well.

I actually met Dr. Masters and Jeff Ferguson, I was a DSL installation technician and had an installation at the Ann Arbor office.

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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.

Can you point me in the direction to get my page back to classic view? I looked all over, but couldn't find a link.

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I like the Weather Underground 'Wundermap' that nicely graphically shows the local Personal Weather Stations in all areas of the country on the map. You can also click on the local to get details. Hopefully, the purchase by The Weather Channel will not discontinue this valuable functionality that is appreciated.

The 'Rapid Fire' observations is also appreciated and valued.

The concerning details is Dr Masters comments 'PWS data will remain unchanged for now'.

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Easiest way is to just switch the "www" with "classic" in the URL.

I also would be really upset if the classic site is taken down. It is superior, by far, to the new site. I like how the favourites are listed both on the left hand side of the page, as well as in the middle of the page. I also like how you have the shaded temperature map on the classic site. Wunderground is the best weather site there is, as it gives you sunrise/sunset times, as well as the times of civil, nautical and astronomical twilight, along with how many minutes/seconds of daylight you will be losing or gaining the next day.

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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.

Too bad GE sold their majority stake in NBC Universal to Comcast and TWC is only partially owned by NBCU in the first place.

Nice conspiracy theory, though.

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A little bit nervous about this deal, but I have a feeling that WU will stay the same through the long term since the site is driven so much by users and providing their personal data. If they lose the data, most would leave and create an alternative and make TWC's money wasted.

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Not sure if it's my computer having a snit (possible, though I've changed nothing about it recently), or due to the change, but WU now loads about 20X slower than it did last week, and frequently locks up the browser.

No different for me.

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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 have to disagree. TWC has plummeted in it's mission to provide WEATHER since NBC took over and it seems like NBC is slowly morphing it into another TLC.

It started with Wake up with Al, which is more like comic relief than weather. Stephanie Abrams is about the worst OC met I've ever watched, bar none. Then stuff like Lifeguards and Pyros were added, which have practically no connection to weather short of the fact that they take place outside, where it might rain or storm. I can somewhat tolerate some of the shows like Storm Riders or even all 4 eposides of "when weather changed history" but there's now more "entertainment" content than actual live weather except on those occasions when they feel the need to pre-empt due to severe outbreaks and the like. Even "Local on the 8's" gets dropped half the time due to break timing conflicts.

Also, nearly all of their original on-camera mets are no longer there. I'm suprised Cantore and Forbes haven't jumped ship yet.

I'd rather have TWC of 1985 back than what it is today.

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