underground inc. type subsidiary founded 1995 ; 21 years ago 1995 founder jeff masters headquarters san francisco california united states parent the weather company 1 website www.wunderground.com weather underground is a commercial weather service providing real time weather information via the internet . weather underground provides weather reports for most major cities across the world on its website as well as local weather reports for newspapers and websites . most of its united states information comes from the national weather service nws as federal law specifies that information from that agency falls within the public domain . the website 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 a subsidiary of ibm . 2 contents 1 history 2 blogs 3 products 4 see also 5 references 6 external links history edit weather underground wu is based in san francisco california and 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 . 3 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 . wu s 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 . the original logo used from 1997 through 2014 in 1995 weather underground inc. became a commercial entity separate from the university . 4 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 . alan steremberg weather underground s president also worked on the early development of google s search engine with larry page and sergey brin . in october 2008 jeff masters reported that the site was 2 in internet weather for 2008 . 5 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 become operated as part of the weather channel companies llc which was later renamed the weather company . the weather underground website continues to operate as a separate entity from the weather channel s 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 website in the united states respectively as of july 2015 . 6 7 similarweb rates the site as the second most visited weather website globally attracting more than 47 million visitors per month . 7 8 the weather company also uses the site s san francisco headquarters as a regional office . 9 10 on october 28 2015 jeff masters noted that ibm had officially announced an agreement to acquire the weather company s business to business mobile and cloud based web properties including weather underground wsi weather.com and also the weather company brand . meanwhile the television service the weather channel remains a separate entity . 11 the deal was finalized on january 29 2016 . 1 blogs edit web logs 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 . jeff masters started the first blog on april 14 2005 12 and he now posts blog entries nearly every day . richard b. rood has been writing blogs on climate change and societal response since 2007 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 which was 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 . 13 products edit weather underground also uses observations from members with automated personal weather stations pws . 14 weather underground currently uses observations from over 100 000 personal weather stations . 15 the weather underground s wundermap overlays weather data from personal weather stations and official nws stations on a google map base and provides many interactive and dynamically updated weather and environmental layers . 16 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 . 17 weather underground has several google chrome extensions 18 and applications for iphone ipad and android 19 including fullscreenweather.com a redirect to a full screen weather viewer tied into google maps . there is also an app developed for roku devices . 20 in february 2015 weather underground released an ios app called storm . 21 this app is universal and can be used on both iphone and ipad . other apps by weather underground include wunderstation 22 for ipad and wundermap 23 for ios and android . see also edit wuhu software references edit a b ibm finalizes deal for weather channel product and tech business . the wrap . january 29 2016 . masters jeff 28 october 2015 . weather underground bought by ibm . weather underground . sbm . retrieved 2 november 2015 . schwartz john ; stelter brian july 3 2012 . fans howl after weather site buys out rival . the new york times . weather underground inc. the first internet weather service . retrieved on 2008 04 05 . 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 . . 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 . weather underground inc. personal weather station . retrieved on 2008 04 05 . weather underground inc. personal weather station network . retrieved on 2015 02 16 weather underground inc. wundermap retrieved on 2015 02 01 . weather underground for the associated press . weather search retrieved on 2009 10 28 . weather underground chrome web store . chrome.google.com . 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 . external links edit official website weather underground braille page a simple text page ideal for screen readers used by the blind um weather the original service from which weather underground branched retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title weather underground weather service & oldid 744581669 categories meteorological companiescompanies based in san franciscoamerican news websitesmeteorological data and networks navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages fran ais t rk e edit links this page was last modified on 16 october 2016 at 05 02 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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