• by April 6, 2004

Weather.com today unveiled a site redesign that enables consumers to customize their home page in order to gain quick access to everything from local pollen forecasts to severe weather alerts. The Weather Channel's Web site also says it expects to debut a series of navigational changes in the coming weeks.

Developed internally, the customized home page allows site visitors to plug in their location in order to receive local forecasts, along with links to severe weather alerts, local radar images, and extended forecasts. Consumers can also choose to connect with lifestyle-related local weather information. When they register for the customized version of weather.com's home page, visitors will receive the day's top weather story, as well as a hyper-local version with their favorite city and activities highlighted.

The weather.com redesign also includes a "Weather Watchlist," which offers site visitors a way to track weather conditions in locations where friends and family live, and for frequent travel destinations. The "Watchlist" lets consumers add five locations to their customized home page. A "My Dates" feature enables visitors to keep tabs on the weather conditions revolving around an important date such as a graduation, wedding, or holiday. For dates 10 days into the future, visitors are offered typical conditions for the particular day and season based on historical weather data.

"With local weather directly on the site's new customized home page, weather.com visitors will receive the weather information that is most relevant to their lives, faster than ever before," says Tom Flournoy, vice president of product management, weather.com. "Offering people convenient, highly personal information sets us apart from other sources of weather data."

Consumers who choose not to customize the home page will continue to enter a city name or zip code to retrieve specific forecasts.

Weather.com attracts approximately 20 million unique visitors each month, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, which ranks it among the top 15 online domains.