• by Lizzie Babarczy , September 17, 2003

With the East Coast gearing up for Hurricane Isabel, traffic to weather related websites has witnessed an increase in U.S. visits.

According to web activity tracker HitWise, since Sept 6th, U.S. visits to Environment websites has increased by 90%.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) website (www.nhc.noaa.gov) has climbed up the ranks to become the #1 website in the Hitwise Lifestyle - Environment category. Amongst 'all websites' it has climbed 216 positions and increased it's market share of U.S. visits since Sept 13th by 40%.

Hurricane Terrapin (hurricane.terrapin.com) also shot up the ranks, climbing a staggering 4451 places in 'all sites' - witnessing an increase in market share of U.S. visits by 56%.

Since Sept 13th, traffic to the National Weather Service - Eastern Region Headquarters (www.erh.noaa.gov) has increased in U.S. visits by 56%. Other weather sites to witness an increase over the past few days have been Storm Display, Weather.com, Weatherbug, National Weather Service and Yahoo! Weather. All weather sites are featuring Hurricane Isabel on the home page.

The majority of traffic to The National Hurricane Centre (www.nhc.noaa.gov) has come from related weather and news sites (53%) and Government websites (23%). After visiting www.nhc.noaa.gov, 13% of visits went to the Geostationary Satellite Server (www.goes.noaa.gov), 9% to the NOAA Satellites & Information website (www.ssd.noaa.gov), and a large proportion to other news and weather websites (Sept 13th).

Weather.com remains as the most popular weather site amongst U.S. Internet users.