Site to offer truly local weather maps
By Associated Press
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - Updated: 03:39 PM EST

ATLANTA - Something seems to be missing from online weather maps.

They show major highways and town names. But have you ever seen one get
detailed enough to show neighbourhoods and street names and, by extension,
truly localized weather?

The Weather Channel is unveiling a product Monday that could change
that.

The Atlanta-based cable channel has partnered with Microsoft Corp. to
offer detailed road maps combined with satellite imagery. The result is an
interactive Web map that lets users zoom in to get a localized snapshot of
current weather. That is, to see how it's affecting their neighbourhood -
not just the city as a whole.

The interactive map sits on the channel's online site,
http://www.weather.com . It has a sliding bar that controls the view of the
weather, along with tools that let users pan around the map.

The Weather Channel hopes it can draw more eyeballs to its site and get
them to stay longer. The site already logs about 35 million users each month
and millions more during weather disasters.

The company will next start mapping out points of interest, such as golf
courses, ski resorts and parks. And eventually, it hopes the program can
show a localized weather forecast for the hours and days ahead.

Says Todd Richards, editorial director of the Web site: "We're
scratching the surface."

On Mar 1, 4:50 pm, "flybywire" wrote:
Site to offer truly local weather maps
By Associated Press
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - Updated: 03:39 PM EST

ATLANTA - Something seems to be missing from online weather maps.

They show major highways and town names. But have you ever seen one get
detailed enough to show neighbourhoods and street names and, by extension,
truly localized weather?

The Weather Channel is unveiling a product Monday that could change
that.

The Atlanta-based cable channel has partnered with Microsoft Corp. to
offer detailed road maps combined with satellite imagery. The result is an
interactive Web map that lets users zoom in to get a localized snapshot of
current weather. That is, to see how it's affecting their neighbourhood -
not just the city as a whole.

The interactive map sits on the channel's online site,http://www.weather.com. It has a sliding bar that controls the view of the
weather, along with tools that let users pan around the map.

The Weather Channel hopes it can draw more eyeballs to its site and get
them to stay longer. The site already logs about 35 million users each month
and millions more during weather disasters.

The company will next start mapping out points of interest, such as golf
courses, ski resorts and parks. And eventually, it hopes the program can
show a localized weather forecast for the hours and days ahead.

Says Todd Richards, editorial director of the Web site: "We're
scratching the surface."

This implies a network density of observations and an
accuracy of microscale forecasting that they don't quite have, you
could say. It's rubbish, but many will be fooled by the spurious
accuracy.

Tudor Hughes - somewhere in SE England.