There are many online sources for weather information, from regional news affiliates to national news feeds to highly specialized singularly dedicated websites. In almost all cases, the weather information they gather and distribute is from one source – the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. Let’s review the principal dedicated sites to find weather forecasts that are available online and give a quick overview of what the search engines and national news agencies provide. Much of the information provided to every online weather center is gathered from the NOAA’s weather service website, at www.nws.noaa.gov. They have information on official U.S. weather, fire, rainfall maps, marine and aviation forecasts, hurricane facts and warnings, climate forecasts and information about meteorology. The NOAA has a large network of weather stations nationally, which provide readings for most local areas. Their website is also very user friendly, showing a wealth of visual information from rainfall data to satellite imaging. There is a large amount of marine weather data available there that boaters and fishermen absolutely depend on. Of course, probably the best known commercial weather website is www.weather.com, which is an off-shoot of the cable television network, The Weather Channel. This site allows a person to fill in their zip code or city/town in a search box and find local, national and international weather condition info. The site provides temperature readings, rainfall data, wind chill and allergy forecasts. It also gives forecasts on an hour-by-hour basis, for the weekend and for the up coming ten-day period, on one page. Graphic features include Doppler radar representations of storm movements and satellite photos. Among the pioneers of online weather forecasting services is the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s weather lab at http://cirrus.sprl.umich.edu/wxnet. They currently maintain a good quality national weather forecasting site featuring rainfall records and they also update a list of over three hundred links to weather-related sites. A spin-off of the University of Michigan’s weather website is called The Weather Underground and can be found at www.wunderground.com. This weather website stays afloat through the use of advertising. Here, you can find weather forecasts based on zip code, city or on a clickable map of the U.S. It also provides international forecasting, searchable by clicking on a country, as well as a comprehensive list of maps on its home page that show national weather trends for factors like wind, temperature, rainfall climate data, visibility and snow depth. Another dedicated weather web location is www.weatherbug.com and it provides downloadable software that updates your local weather forecast and weather report. National news sites such as www.cnn.com provide international weather, rainfall data and five-day forecasts by location. USA Today online has global forecasts and information on meteorological topics such as climate rainfall and global warming. Their web address is www.usatoday.com/weather. It doesn’t matter whether you want information on a vacation destination across the globe or whether you want to know if you should wear shorts or jeans today, an accurate weather forecast can be found online. To find weather related information pertinent to you, try out a few of these websites and see which one fits your needs the best.
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