Organizations ranging from the National Weather Service to private forecasting companies and television stations are trying to muscle in on the Weather Channel and grab the attention of weather enthusiasts with their Web sites. The advantage of the Internet, the organizations said, is instantaneous, updated, personalized weather information. These sites are useful to people whose interest in the weather starts and stops with wanting to know if they need an umbrella that day. But for weather fanatics, the sites are the mother lode. They show real-time satellite weather photos, current temperatures for cities around the world, wind speeds on the ocean, tornado watches on the plains.
Many sites offer what has been referred to as now-casting or personal weather views.
When severe weather has been forecast, a weather icon alerts the user. The service is about a month old and has about 31,000 subscribers. The average user has been clicking in 13 times a day, said Stephanie M. Blozy, a meteorologist at AWS, formally known as Automated Weather Source. Users of Web-enabled cell phones and organizers like the Palm VII can download the free AWS WeatherNet software for access to weather information on the go. A particular favorite with weather hobbyists is weather.gov, the National Weather Service page that says 10,000 weather sites link to it.