• by Masha Geller , September 22, 2003

As the winds picked up on the East Coast, people turned to the web for the most current information about hurricane Isabel and the threat it poses to the easters United States.

According to website activity tracker comScore, the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which includes the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center) has seen a substantial increase in traffic in the past week. Today, NOAA.gov saw more than 900,000 visitors, up over 200% versus an average of the previous four weeks.

Also, FEMA.gov, the site for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saw 60,000 visitors today, an increase in traffic of more than 500% versus a four week average.

comScore says that commercial weather sites also saw substantial traffic increases. Weather.com was up 54% to 2.8 million visitors and AccuWeather.com was up 63% to more than 325,000 visitors today.

According to comScore spokesman Graham Mudd, "We didn't see major news sites increase substantially yesterday, but with the hurricane coming ashore we expect to see a significant increase in visitation today."