Global Weather Forecast Notifications From The Weather Company Help Make Life Easier for Users Around the World

Stay Informed Both Online and Off With The Weather Channel and Weather Underground When Significant Weather Events are Forecasted for Your Locations

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- In some countries, it’s become the norm to know when significant weather will affect your day to help you stay safe and plan daily activities. However, in other places around the globe, citizens have little to no warning before weather-related disaster strikes. To help in both cases, The Weather Company, an IBM Business (NYSE:IBM), has launched new global* weather forecast notifications. Now available on The Weather Channel and Weather Underground apps, the notifications also go beyond apps to include mobile web, offering new technology to many areas where it did not previously exist.

“Our global weather forecast notifications offer additional information to what services like the National Weather Service in the U.S. and other national meteorological services provide, and they are game changing for areas without similar resources,” said Domenic Venuto, general manager of consumer business, The Weather Company. “The potential for improved safety around the world drives our team to continue advancing technology within both our products and our forecasting methods.”

The Weather Company users can subscribe to these notifications for all their saved locations, available on The Weather Channel App for Android and iOS, Storm App by Weather Underground, as well as on Android mobile web and desktop (Chrome). These notifications leverage the Web Push Notifications API, one of the key features in a Progressive Web App.

Users also have the option to receive official government-issued alerts (from NWS, Environment Canada, the UK Met Office and European meteorological agencies). Where these alerting systems don’t exist, The Weather Company global weather forecast notifications inform citizens when locations they care about should expect the following conditions:

• Dense fog
• Heavy rainfall
• Heavy snowfall
• High wind
• Ice
• Thunderstorms
• Very cold
• Very hot

Notifications are triggered up to 48 hours in advance only when a saved location is forecasted to have significant weather, or a notable difference relative to average conditions. For example, users in Moscow will only receive a “Very Cold” notification when the temperature drops well below standard winter temperatures. Or Miami citizens will get a “Very Hot” notification only on days that exceed typical summer temperatures there.

Continuing to improve forecasts

The Weather Company weather data platform provides notifications in almost every country and for nearly 800,000 locations worldwide, based on its billions of forecast points worldwide. This enables citizens to receive notifications via mobile and web devices.

Global notifications pull data from radical forecasting technology created by The Weather Company that uses both atmospheric and computational sciences to produce the most reliable forecasts available. This patented forecasting engine and its world-class data and distribution system put The Weather Company a decade ahead of others in the weather space.

The system captures observation data from sources that include weather models from around the world, airplane sensors, more than 200,000 personal weather stations and more. It then analyzes that data in real time using historical learnings and collective wisdom from a vast team of forecasters working around the clock. The Weather Company scales to handle 20 billion forecast requests per day on average and for any location anywhere on the planet.

Users can know when significant weather is heading their way by signing up for weather notifications within The Weather Channel App for iPhone and Android or within Storm by Weather Underground for iPhone or iPad.

*Global weather forecast notifications are not available for the following countries: China, Japan, South Africa, South Korea and Zambia.

The Weather Company, an IBM Business

The Weather Company, an IBM Business, is the world's largest private weather enterprise, helping people make informed decisions – and take action – in the face of weather. The company offers the most accurate, personalized and actionable weather data and insights to millions of consumers and thousands of businesses via Weather’s API, its business solutions division, and its own digital products from The Weather Channel (weather.com) and Weather Underground (wunderground.com).

The company delivers up to 26 billion forecasts daily. Its products include a top weather app on all major mobile platforms globally; the world’s largest network of personal weather stations; a top-20 U.S. website; the seventh most data-rich site in the world; one of the world’s largest IoT data platforms; and industry-leading business solutions.

Weather Means Business™. The world’s biggest brands in aviation, energy, insurance, media, and government rely on The Weather Company for data, technology platforms and services to help improve decision-making and respond to weather’s impact on business. For more, visit www.theweathercompany.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160512005324/en/

The Weather Company, an IBM Business

Melissa Medori
[email protected]

Source: The Weather Company