By the Numbers: Weather and Climate Go Together

Abstract

Which government information webpages are used most frequently? Does it surprise you that weather pages are used more than any other government information pages? (For details on the pages used, see Campbell’s column on the Digital Analytics Program in the previous issue of BTN). The weather.gov domain had over 14 million visits in the past 7 days (when I checked). Every day, the weather is in the news: flash floods, tornadoes, rain, drought, snow, lightning, heat, hurricanes, and cold. Intense weather can be hazardous and costly: Every year people lose their lives and their property to weather events. This column focuses on weather and climate data sources that can help people become “weather-ready and climate-smart” in terms of making their businesses and communities resilient to extreme events.