Relaunch of popular weather site highlights weather’s impact on personal interest areas, such as health, sports and recreation, home and garden, travel, and school day preparation

STATE COLLEGE, PA – December 19, 2012 – Tailored information that helps users save time and make informed decisions about their schedule due to weather’s impact on personal interest areas is now integrated in every local forecast on AccuWeather.com. This information is categorized into 26 lifestyle lenses, such as cold and flu, skiing, hiking, lawn and garden, and snow days, the latter forecasting how likely or unlikely it is that school will be closed due to winter weather.

 

“When users view their forecast through their chosen lifestyle lenses, they are better able to plan their lives,” said Pascal Racheneur, AccuWeather Vice President of Interactive Media. “For example, if you are looking at your weather forecast through your allergies lens, you will not only see the weather forecast for your location, but you will also see that the forecast is tailored for a person with allergy concerns. You will see the forecasts for dust and dander, and other allergy- related information, and you will know if you should make any adjustments or take precautions.”

 

The “lifestyle lens” is AccuWeather’s user metaphor to describe a powerful, new personalization tool. Users can customize their forecast pages by parking lifestyle “lenses” — categories — reflecting personal interests in their dock, ready for display at the click of a mouse. The detailed, local forecast that is displayed then shows not only comprehensive general weather information, but also special weather forecasts from the perspective of the chosen interest that explain how the weather will impact that activity.

 

In addition to the tailored, more relevant weather information and time savings, the 26 lifestyle lenses are accessible through new navigation that minimizes the number of clicks necessary to access the weather forecast for a user’s location. For example, by clicking once on the migraine lens in the navigation bar, users see the migraine forecast and the weather forecast, including hourly, for their location.

 

Adding a Lifestyle Lens:

 

  • Click on the question mark found in the central navigation bar on www.AccuWeather.com.
  • A drop down menu will appear displaying all 26 available lifestyle lenses.
  • Choose a lifestyle lens and click it.
  • The lens will be added to the navigation bar.
  • A user may choose to add any or all of the 26 lenses to their navigation bar.

 

AccuWeather.com also offers dozens of additional, popular capabilities, including:

 

  • Accurate and local forecasts for 2.7 million locations worldwide. Updated every hour, forecasts have detailed hourly forecasts for the next 24 hours, plus day and night forecasts and information for the next 25 days.
  • Watches and warnings for worldwide locations, when AccuWeather forecasts severe weather conditions.
  • Current weather conditions constantly updated with the very latest temperatures, sky conditions, probability of precipitation, humidity percentages, visibility, UV index, wind speed gusts and direction, times for sunrise and sunset, and RealFeel® — AccuWeather’s exclusive weather forecasting system that analyzes multiple conditions to determine how the local temperature actually feels, which may be warmer or colder than the temperature, depending on these conditions.
  • Radar for all of North America and Europe, and worldwide satellite overlaying interactive Google Maps™.
  • Current broadcast-quality weather news and videos (many available in both English and Spanish), interactive radar and maps, and winter and severe weather centers, such as the Hurricane Center and the Global Climate Change Center. The Global Climate Change Center recently featured internationally-known, global warming expert, Dr. Michael E. Mann.
  • Forecasts are available in 47 different languages with a choice between metric or imperial units.