Customer Insight
AccuWeather: Taking the Internet by Storm
Weather touches everyone, every day. What to prepare for? Will the weather be a complement or a hindrance to the day's activities, or worse? People worldwide turn to AccuWeather for the answers. Starting with snow forecasts for Pennsylvania ski slopes and public agencies back in 1962, AccuWeather soon became a leading provider of print and televised weather information. Today, AccuWeather's own local weather channel is carried in 47 markets nationally, including the major metropolitan areas of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. AccuWeather information goes out to more than 20,000 Internet sites and 1,100 radio, television and newspaper clients.
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Critical Warnings for New Orleans AccuWeather was recognized by Congress for its unique accuracy in predicting the target of Hurricane Katrina's landfall. One day before landfall, while federal authorities forecasted minimal flooding, AccuWeather predicted the city of New Orleans would be 50-70% flooded, and that preparations to save lives should be rushed to completion. AccuWeather's correct assessment of probable flooding from the north, due to a rain-swollen Lake Pontchartrain, provided possible life-saving information delivered just in time. |
With over two billion page views last year, AccuWeather.com® is the Internet's fastest growing weather site. AccuWeather has become a global media giant that proudly proclaims itself as The World's Weather Authority®. "We have purposely evolved into a media company with weather content," says AccuWeather CEO Barry Myers. "Our audience now is the world — anyone who can carry a wireless device, or can connect to the Internet, can connect to AccuWeather."
Every hour, vast amounts of weather data from public and private sources are processed through the proprietary AccuWeather Forecast Engine™. AccuWeather's 113 meteorologists - more weather professionals under one roof than anywhere on earth - then interpret the data and manage the creation of the forecasts. Graphics and video segments are added, and the production goes live on AccuWeather.com - wired and mobile. Every day, AccuWeather produces hundreds of videos and scores of news stories and blogs. Information is the key to preparedness. As Steven Smith, AccuWeather's CIO, states, "The AccuWeather mission is to save lives and to protect property. We have the technology to deliver on that promise."
Delivering the Best Weather on the Web™
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Pinpoint Accuracy Saves Lives A minute before six o'clock on the evening of February 5, 2008, a tornado plowed into a manufacturing plant in Oxford, Mississippi, causing major damage. There were no injuries to report because at 5:37 p.m. WeatherData Services, Inc., an AccuWeather company, sent a site-specific warning to its client in Oxford. Working within preset parameters to notify the facility of any severe storms forecasted to pass within five miles, the 22 minute notice was just enough to get all employees into storm shelters before the plant took a direct hit from the tornado. |
With so much critical information to publish, AccuWeather chose AT&T Intelligent Content Distribution Service (ICDS), provided as a managed service, to replicate and cache its rich web content and videos. Weather information is delivered to users from multiple service nodes located in AT&T Internet Data Centers and Service Node Routing Centers. By sending content from sites distributed across the AT&T network, ICDS eliminates potential bottlenecks and makes delivery fast and reliable for AccuWeather.com users. "We want to be the choice for weather information," says Smith. "We want our products and the way we present and distribute data to be leading edge. A partner like AT&T has the perfect expertise to manage the network and ensure our success."
Each month, about 15 million users generate billions of requests for information from the AccuWeather.com network. But dramatic events like Hurricane Katrina, a tornado outbreak or a winter blizzard will send traffic on AccuWeather.com into overdrive. To be prepared, AccuWeather has installed an AT&T ACCU-Ring optical fiber connection for ultra-high bandwidth access to the AT&T global IP network. "We have laid the groundwork for the future here," states CIO Smith, "to ensure our bandwidth can meet whatever the spike in demand could be. This increase in bandwidth also facilitates serving clients in real time, and allows the company to aggressively meet growing demand, in part from the rise in mobile users."
Putting Weather in Your Pocket
Mobile users need their own streamlined presentations tailored for the hand-held screen. Delivering this trove of weather data to millions of users through multiple user devices, quickly and reliably, poses a significant challenge. CEO Myers describes AccuWeather as "putting weather in your pocket and at your fingertips." "We have excelled at understanding what is valuable to a user," he says. "Somebody with a mobile device has very limited real estate to look at and needs to have information quickly. It must be understandable and enhance all weather-related decisions."
This content, clear, accurate, fast and complete, is the final product of AccuWeather efforts for the public, made with the underlying mission in mind: protecting life and property. According to Smith, “The information we distribute saves people's lives if it is there when they need it. We need a partner we can rely on. That partner has been AT&T.”
