Talk:Weather Underground (weather service)

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

California: San Francisco Bay Area Low‑importance

	California portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject California, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CaliforniaWikipedia:WikiProject CaliforniaTemplate:WikiProject CaliforniaCalifornia articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	San Francisco Bay Area portal This article is supported by San Francisco Bay Area task force (assessed as Low-importance).

Companies Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Companies, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of companies on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CompaniesWikipedia:WikiProject CompaniesTemplate:WikiProject Companiescompany articles

Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Companies To-do:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Wikipedia:Requested articles/Business and economics/Companies
Assess : Category:Unassessed company articles
Copyedit : Category:Company articles needing attention
Infobox : Category:Company articles needing infoboxes
Maintain : Portal:Companies
Stubs : Help expand stub articles located at Category:Company stubs
Other :
- Tag company articles with the {{portal|Companies}} template
- Tag company talk pages with the {{WikiProject Companies}} project banner
- Answer requests for comments

Michigan Low‑importance

	Michigan portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Michigan, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Michigan on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MichiganWikipedia:WikiProject MichiganTemplate:WikiProject MichiganMichigan articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Weather: Tropical / Non-tropical / Thunderstorms / Tornadoes Mid‑importance

	Weather portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Weather, which collaborates on weather and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details. Articles Requested Project Resources Become a Member Project Talk Assessment A-Class Alerts WeatherWikipedia:WikiProject WeatherTemplate:WikiProject WeatherWeather articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	Tropical cyclones portal This article is supported by WikiProject Tropical cyclones (assessed as Mid-importance).
	This article is supported by the Non-tropical storms task force (assessed as Mid-importance).
	Tornadoes portal This article is supported by WikiProject Severe weather (assessed as Mid-importance).

Previous discussions without headers

Yeah. Merge. Gzuckier 13:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A logo would be useful; they have a logo use webpage, which states how it can be used by publications and websites. Could someone take a look at how "fair use" applies in this case? 205.201.141.146 16:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weather Underground Blogger userbox

I made a Weather Underground Bloggers Userbar for all those who blog.

WU

This user Blogs on Weather Underground

-Wxweenie91 (talk) 19:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User Wxweenie91 moved to User:WxHalo in December 2007 after he forgot his account password. Anyway, it doesn't matter, since Weather Underground arbitrarily terminated all user blogs in 2017. — Quicksilver (Hydrargyrum)^{T @} 03:53, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Controversy over name?

Has there been any? After all, at least some people consider the radical group to have been terrorists. I see that the weather group started at a university - has anyone suggested that maybe the name is okay for that, but less so for a major national weather site? I'm not expressing a personal view here, incidentally, just wondering. 86.136.250.66 (talk) 00:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It pisses me off every time I see it and it lowers my confidence that WU can be neutral when it comes to politically charged climate debates.Hobbe Yonge (talk) 03:20, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. 2601:283:8401:9F20:E837:9043:C984:FC23 (talk) 17:30, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There has not been a notable controversy over giving themselves a funny ironic name. LesbianTiamat (talk) 03:33, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Its founder Jeff Masters is a real global warming guy and still has a blog on WU the name may come from his personal beliefs. Sattmaster (talk) 13:38, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was surprised at the name, too, but:

1) It was a long time ago, so few remember.

2) They did attempt to avoid casualties, so nothing compared to, say, ISIL. StuRat (talk) 19:18, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The site has been around a long time, going back to the 1990s and a time when weather information mostly came from "official" sources such as the National Weather Service. Many Websites originated at Universities where people could connect to discuss different topics and weather was one of them. I believe the name was derived as an alternative source of weather information or an "underground" of information, hence the name "weather underground". Regardless of the political beliefs of the sites founder, it has nothing to do with the group in the 1960s. Jeff Masters was only one of the people who founded the site as there were others involved.Dbroer (talk) 19:01, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Both the domestic terrorist organization Weathermen/Weather Underground/WU and the weather service were founded at the University of Michigan. The "cute" Rainbow Coalition fashioned "WU" is a reminder of the coalition between the Black Panthers and WU in 1969 (following WU's split from SDS - RYM II Split). The idea that WU (the terrorist group) tried to avoid casualties is a post hoc lie intended to soften its image in the minds of potential jurors. Crude pipe bombs don't have eyes, ears or intelligence or any other ability to "avoid casualties". They detonate and the blast destroys whatever is in the vicinity. WU targeted both businesses and individual human beings and their families with their bombs, especially PG&E in San Francisco. They also posted the photos, names and addresses of their favorite PG&E targets to encourage others to get in on all the fun of vaporizing them, their spouses and children by bombing their homes. They were successful in killing several people (including blowing themselves up due to incomplete understanding of bomb making - reading a couple of paragraphs on how to make bombs on the Anarchist's Cookbook isn't the best educational choice...or so it appears.). These were not nice "Aw, shucks, they were just wild kids in college" people. They were murderers.

Naming his company in honor of WU is a sick, cruel joke. Ask the victims' families. They haven't forgotten. There is very little chance that Jeff Masters wasn't aware of who the Weathermen, Weather Underground, WU was and is. SanaroGravedad (talk) 19:36, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Outside of sharing the name and where they were founded, do you have any sources/references showing a connection between the two? Your diatribe on the environmental group is accurate but is separate from the weather service. I'm sure that Master's was aware of the group name but that doesn't mean that they are the same. The term underground has been used for centuries as a hidden or secret group. Does the environmental group have exclusive rights to the term? Similarly, Christians view the rainbow as a sign of God's promise to Noah. Does that mean that they also support the LGBTQIA movement? Does the LGBTQIA's use of the rainbow show support for the weather underground terrorist group?

Everything you said about the group is correct but it's a jump to connect the two, despite sharing the same name and where they were founded in my opinion. Dbroer (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Intro paragraph

The intro paragraph states "Most of its United States information comes from the National Weather Service (NWS), as information from that agency is within the public domain by federal law." I don't believe that's true as most of the observations on the site come from personal weather stations and the forecasts they issue are now done in house. Without objections, I think that should be changed to read "Most of its United States information comes from personal weather stations with official observations coming from the National Weather Service (NWS)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbroer (talk • contribs) 19:47, 2 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct as of today the MADIS system link to the weather service stations no longer works, has been down for months, and the only stations being listed are PWS. Sattmaster (talk) 13:30, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Accuracy

Perhaps the article should discuss the accuracy of the forecasts. I notice for example that the graphs often show sudden jumps from present/immediate past to future, suggesting that they simply interpolate a line between reports and predictions, which are not in close correspondence.Paulhummerman (talk) 15:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's how forecast works to the right is the forecast to the left is actual Sattmaster (talk) 13:30, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]