Forecasting the weather in State College is probably one of the toughest jobs. But Accu-Weather, Inc. doesn't just predict the unpredictable. The company sells it.
Founded 27 years ago by president Joel N. Myers, Accu-Weather, 619 W. College Ave., has expanded to serve more than 3,000 clients world-wide, providing the media, government and industry with weather forecasts, data, information, graphics, hardware and software.
Adding to its business, Accu-Weather recently purchased Metracom, Inc., a weather service business based in Oklahoma City and now provides weather and database services to its former clients.
Metracom selected Accu-Weather because of the service's outstanding history and performance in the weather business, said President R. Dale Loinen in a news release.
Myers said Metracom decided to sell its operations because increased competition from other weather service businesses was stifling the growth of the company. Metracom was responsible for the development of the first weather electronic database. Only a handful exist today, he added.
The Metracom purchase is one of three major acquisitions Accu-Weather has made in the past few months.
The company purchased graphic services from Weather Network, which operated out of California and produced high resolution graphics for television, said Michael Steinberg, Accu-Weather Vice President. The company also acquired Weather Link software, enabling television stations to have access to thousands of Accu-Weather graphics, he added.
The new state-of-the-art equipment will join Accu-Weather's current "Accu-Data" system and assist more than 70 meteorologists in forecasting weather. Television weather graphics and road condition reports are provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Accu-Data compiles weather reports from around the world into one system, Steinberg said.
Businesses, schools, other meteorologists and even weather hobbyists can then tap into the system for the latest weather reports, he added.
While Myers was a graduate student at Penn State, he started Accu-Weather as a consulting business for ski areas. During the years he has taught at the University and expanded the business to include other cities and counties to become the nation's only full-service weather company.
Two hundred television stations and 100 newspapers world-wide use information from Accu-Weather. Some of those clients include the Associated Press, Centre Daily Times, WJAC-TV in Johnstown and radio station WRSC.
