The Weather Channel 2014. Aside from location-based weather forecast information, the apps provided radar maps, and tropical and seasonal updates, as well as social media related functions that track weather-related Twitter messages and allow users to send Facebook friends severe weather alerts. The channel also disseminated severe weather information, and photos and videos submitted by meteorologists and viewers, on its Twitter feed (@TWCBreaking, which also served as a hashtag usable for posts). In July 2012, The Weather Company (former owner of The Weather Channel) purchased competing weather website Weather Underground. While The Weather Channel already had success with its own mobile apps, it
Weather media in the United States By the 1990s, sensationalism played a role in weather coverage. Farmers' Almanacs have published long-term forecasts for around 200 years. While almanac publishers have attributed an 80 to 85 percent accuracy rate to the publication’s annual forecasts, independent studies that retrospectively compare the weather with the predictions have not shown them more accurate than chance. Predictions for each edition are made as far as two years in advance. The "Farmers’ Almanac" publishers are highly secretive about the method used to make its predictions, only stating publicly that it is a "top secret mathematical and astronomical formula, that relies on sunspot