Weather Updates Survey: Online Forecasts More Popular Than TV

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Posted Jan 21, 2014

During the recent winter vortex, people around the country relied on various news outlets and websites to provide them with updates and forecasts about the weather. But certain DirecTV customers were unable to access The Weather Channel, arguably the most popular provider of these forecasts. How many people rely on The Weather Channel and similar outlets for weather updates?

weather updates

Weather Updates

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, 24% of respondents said they check for weather updates and forecasts multiple times per day. 41% said they check the weather every day. 19% check a few times per week. 5% said they check about once per week. 10% check the weather less than once per week. And just 3% said they never check for weather updates.

Various Formats

But there are plenty of different ways for people to get these weather updates, and technology has certainly had an impact on the way people do this. 66% of respondents said they check weather updates online. 48% get their weather forecasts on TV. 37% use a mobile device to check the weather. And just 7% read the newspaper or other print media to get weather forecasts.More specifically, 23% said they always use The Weather Channel or its online presence, Weather.com, to get their weather updates. Another 58% said they sometimes get their weather updates from The Weather Channel. And just 19% never use The Weather Channel for forecasts.

Measuring Trust

So just how big of an impact do these weather forecasts have? 30% of respondents said they rely heavily on forecasts to plan their daily activities. 51% said they are somewhat reliant on these forecasts. 16% said they don’t normally rely on weather forecasts to plan daily activities. And 3% don’t rely on them at all.27% said they place a lot of trust in their weather forecasts to be accurate and reliable. 65% said they somewhat trust weather forecasts to be accurate. And 8% said they don’t trust weather forecasts to be accurate. The format of these forecasts, whether online or from more traditional venues, didn’t have much of an impact on people’s trust.You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: GOES-13 Satellite Eyeing System With a High Risk of Severe Weather from FlickrWhat do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on January 20 via AYTM’s online survey panel.