While the weather caused traffic around State College to slow down this week, the traffic to many weather Web sites was heavier than usual.

On Tuesday, more than a foot of snow was dumped on Penn State, and the Penn State Live Web site saw more than twice the amount of its normal activity, said Doug Stanfield, coordinator of information technology for university relations and managing editor of the site.

"There was a brief burst of activity in the morning. Just before 9 a.m. classes, we were handling about 40 to 50 requests per minute," Stanfield said.

Steve Shipman, operations director at local radio station WPSU-FM (91.5), said www.wpsu.psu.edu is the official site for university closing and weather-related information.

"The old, traditional way of finding out school closings on television or the radio is slower than logging onto the Web because you can go to the list of schools and click on the one you are looking for," Shipman said.

Shipman said WPSU doesn't benefit financially from getting more hits on its Web site because it is a public organization affiliated with the university, but commercial Web sites probably would.

"They place advertisements around their home pages, which are set up so consumers must first visit that page before clicking on school closing or other weather-related pages," Shipman said.

Mike Dangelo, senior forecaster and webmaster for the National Weather Service's local Web site, said there is a peak in activity leading up to snowstorms, but the site also receives many hits afterward because people track post-storm information, such as snowfall amounts and temperatures.

"For instance, we had a prolonged storm starting Jan. 25 ... and ended Jan. 28. Looking at the Web statistics during that time, compared to Jan. 20 when the weather was fine, visitorship doubled on the 24th and 25th, and on the 27th, the numbers went up four-fold," Dangelo said.

On a normal day in January, Dangelo said the Web site transferred about 20 million items of information. But on Jan. 27, about 202 million pieces of information were transferred over the Web site.

Bill Staley (sophomore-landscape architecture) said he has The Weather Channel Web site set as his homepage.

"I use it all the time and look at it about 20 times a day," Staley said.

He said he doesn't use other Web sites but will sometimes click on weather links on the page to find out more information.

Staley said he uses the information more frequently when he hears about the potential for snowstorms.

"Snow impacts life at Penn State more than rain does because it puts a strain on traffic and people walking in bad weather," Staley said.

Stanfield said that overall, there isn't much of a difference in traffic to weather Web sites from the winter to the summer months, but activity is more event-driven.

Lynnette Anderson (sophomore-film and video) said she doesn't really use the university Web sites to find out about delays or school closings.

"It's very unlikely that Penn State won't have classes due to the weather, so I just don't bother checking it," Anderson said.