Katrina's Impact Transforms New Blog From The Weather Channel(R)

Katrina's Impact Transforms New Blog From The Weather Channel(R)

Forum for On-Camera Meteorologists and Severe Weather Experts Becomes Resource for Viewers Searching for Information on Katrina's Impact; Site Redirects Traffic to Message Board

ATLANTA, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Just a week after launching a blog to connect viewers with its meteorologists and severe weather experts, Hurricane Katrina has transformed The Weather Channel blog (http://www.weather.com/blog) to a forum connecting people looking for information on the hurricane's impact. After an overwhelming response to a single blog entry titled "Desperately Seeking," The Weather Channel has created a message board on its site (http://www.messageboards.weather.com/) to better serve people looking to share and request information on family, friends and neighborhoods impacted by Katrina.

The Weather Channel Interactive created the blog to feature behind-the- scenes perspectives from its on-camera meteorologists and severe weather experts, giving viewers a window into the process of tracking a storm and making a forecast. During coverage of Katrina, this meant first-hand reports from scenes of devastation along the Gulf Coast from Stephanie Abrams, Mike Seidel and Jim Cantore, as well as a glimpse into the difficult logistics of covering such widespread destruction.

"We launched the blog for our viewers to connect with our on-camera meteorologists and severe weather experts -- once Katrina struck and we witnessed the devastation, we realized we had also created a way for people to connect with family and friends," said Tom Flournoy, vice president of product management at The Weather Channel Interactive. "We are now asking visitors to weather.com seeking and posting hurricane information to use the message board since it can be more effective and immediate in enabling them to see their postings and the responses of others."

In addition to the blog, evidence of our dependence on the Internet during severe weather could be seen in the increase in traffic to The Weather Channel Web site, weather.com. On Sunday, August 28th according to The Weather Channel Interactive's internal measurement, approximately 3.5 million unique users visited weather.com, the third highest weekend day in the history of the site. On Monday, August 29th, approximately 7 million unique users visited weather.com, the second highest day in the history of weather.com. In addition, on Monday weather.com set a site record for page views and for unique users of Desktop Weather.

For More Information Contact: David Blumenthal The Weather Channel 770-226-2611 dblumenthal@weather.com

Source: The Weather Channel

CONTACT: David Blumenthal of The Weather Channel, +1-770-226-2611, or dblumenthal@weather.com

Web site: http://www.weather.com/blog http://www.messageboards.weather.com/ http://www.weather.com/

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