20 Things You Didn’t Know about Intellicast

Intellicast.com is a website that specializes in providing interested individuals with the latest in weather information. Its information is rather comprehensive in nature, thus making it an excellent choice for people who want something more in-depth than what they see on the weather segment of their local news program. This is made possible by a team of experts as well as a remarkable amount of infrastructure that has been built up over time. Here are 20 things that you may or may not have known about Intellicast:

1. It Is a Website

As stated earlier, Intellicast is the name of a website. Conveniently, the website can be found exactly where people would expect based on its name. Intellicast is associated with other weather information services, but those services don’t share its name because their association didn’t start up because one sprang from the other.

2. It Was Founded in 1996

Intellicast started up in 1996. In other words, it is one of the older websites that can be found out there, though it is still far from being the first website, which went up in 1991. Regardless, the fact that Intellicast has continued providing its services to interested individuals for such a long time says much about how it has been received by those same people over time.

3. Owned by The Weather Company

Currently, Intellicast is owned by The Weather Company, which is a corporation that specializes in both IT and weather forecasting. Besides Intellicast, said corporation owns other services that weather enthusiasts might be familiar with, with examples ranging from weather.com to Weather Underground. With that said, it is interesting to note that The Weather Company being called The Weather Company is actually something that happened in relatively recent times.

4. The Weather Company Used to Be Called The Weather Channel

The Weather Company used to be called The Weather Channel, which makes sense because that is what it started out as. It wasn’t until 2012 that The Weather Company started being called The Weather Company, which happened because by that point in time, it consisted of much more than just a single weather channel. Moreover, it is important to note that there are other reasons that interested individuals shouldn’t mistake The Weather Company for The Weather Channel in the present day, which is very much connected to what has happened to the corporation over the course of its existence.

5. Used to Be Owned by a Consortium

At one point in time, The Weather Company was owned by a consortium, which was made up of NBCUniversal plus a couple of firms called Bain Capital and The Blackstone Group. It was this consortium that was responsible for the separation of The Weather Company and The Weather Channel. In short, what happened was that they sold most of The Weather Company to IBM in 2016 but chose to held on to The Weather Channel, which was eventually sold to another buyer called Entertainment Studios in 2018. With that said, there are still connections between the two entities, which is perhaps unsurprising considering the nature of their respective work.

6. The Weather Company Is Still Connected to The Weather Channel

First, it seems that IBM is the one that owns the name as well as the brand for The Weather Channel. This is supported by the fact that the consortium of NBCUniversal and its partners had to pay IBM for the right to use those things when they held on to The Weather Channel. Furthermore, it is worth noting that much of the weather information produced by The Weather Channel comes from The Weather Company, which possesses the parts of the corporation responsible for those particular tasks.

7. Grouped Together with Other Digital Assets

Generally speaking, Intellicast is grouped together with the other digital assets that fall under the banner of The Weather Company. This means both weather.com and wunderground.com, both of which offer weather information but nonetheless possess their own particularities that make them better-suited for some interested individuals than others. As a result, while The Weather Company possesses multiple service providers offering interested individuals the same service in a broad sense, they don’t compete with one another so much that they become totally redundant.

8. Has Synergy with Other Assets

With that said, Intellicast benefits a fair amount from the rest of The Weather Company’s assets. After all, The Weather Company has gotten very good at weather forecasting, so much so that it is a common name when it comes to businesses seeking out a source of weather information. As a result, Intellicast benefits from the same capabilities that enable The Weather Company to satisfy said segment of the market, which help it make its particular kind of weather information available to interested individuals as well. In this sense, there is a fair amount of synergy between it and its counterparts.

9. Owned By Watson & Cloud Platform

The Weather Company is owned by IBM. To be exact, it is owned by the business unit called Watson & Cloud Platform. Said business unit provides interested parties with various products and services. In particular, cloud-based services are common, which is perhaps unsurprising considering its mention in the name. With that said, The Weather Company remains a corporation in its own right, which is why it is a subsidiary rather than some other kind of business.

10. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA

The headquarters of The Weather Company can be found in Atlanta, GA. This isn’t particularly unusual, seeing as how the city of Atlanta has the people as well as the infrastructure needed to support a wide range of business operations. For proof, look no further than the fact that it is home to a lot more companies than just The Weather Company, with examples ranging from CNN to Coca-Cola and UPS. In part, this is because Atlanta is something of a transportation hub. However, it should also be noted that Atlanta boasts a well-educated workforce, which is rather important for companies that want to set up their headquarters as well as all of the business operations contained therein.

11. Offers Specific Forecasts for 60,000 Locations

In total, Intellicast claims to offer weather forecasts for 60,000 locations. Some of these locations are situated in the United States, which for obvious reasons, remains the core of Intellicast’s business operations. However, other locations are situated throughout the entire world, which makes sense because of its user base as well as their particular interests. With that said, it is important to note that these weather forecasts don’t mean weather forecasts that happen to include those locations. Instead, it means weather forecasts that are specifically meant for those locations.

12. Integrated Extensively with Other The Weather Company Assets

Intellicast’s website is integrated to some extent with the rest of The Weather Company’s assets. For instance, it has no Contact Us section of its own. Instead, said link directs interested individuals to the Contact Us section of Weather Underground. Likewise, while there is a link on Intellicast for advertising opportunities for interested parties, it doesn’t maintain a section of its own but instead redirects them to the relevant section on weather.com, which in turn, leads to an IBM site. To be fair, this makes sense, seeing as how these various websites are close enough with one another that having these sections for each of them would probably be more complicated than they really need to be.

13. Has a Help Section

For the most part, making use of Intellicast should be relatively simple and straightforward. After all, everything is conveniently labelled, meaning that it shouldn’t be too challenging for interested individuals to figure out what each section does if they are interested. However, Intellicast features a Help section, which should come as welcome news for people who are curious about particular features, so much so that they are willing to look up further information about them.

14. Check Out the Glossary

One excellent example of how the Help section can perform its intended function is the Glossary. In short, this is a collection of terms that see use in weather forecasts and the like, meaning that it can be useful for people who are unclear about some of the language that comes up on Intellicast.com and its counterparts, meaning that they could benefit from a short lesson on said topic. Even people who are already familiar with weather forecasting websites might still be able to benefit from a short refresher from time to time.

15. Check Out the FAQs

Likewise, the FAQs can be very useful for people who have questions about a particular section of Intellicast’s website as well. Simply put, this is the section where the service provider puts some of the most common questions asked of them by interested individuals, meaning that it is a good place to start for those who want to ask questions of their own. After all, if their questions have already been answered, it makes sense for them to read what is readily available instead of having to go through the hassle of contacting the people behind the website.

16. Check Out the Q&As

Speaking of which, Intellicast has a Q&A section, which shouldn’t be confused for its FAQ section. In short, while the FAQs section is focused on questions about the website itself, Q&A is more focused on weather topics. As a result, it might prove interesting for people who are curious about some common weather-related questions as well as their answers, particularly if they don’t mind reading up on some simple mathematical formulas in the process. After all, the very first question is the conversion between Celsius and Fahrenheit, which makes sense when those two systems see so much use for day-to-day temperatures.

17. Answers Question about the Nature of Ice Fog

In one of the questions in the Q&A section, Intellicast explains the nature of the phenomenon called an ice fog. In short, an ice fog is fog with ice particles suspended within it, which makes it about as pleasant as it sounds. It tends to be something that shows up in select regions that possesses all of the factors needed to bring it about. For instance, it needs colder temperatures for the ice to form, a source of moisture for the fog to pop up, and is most common when higher latitudes see calm weather.

18. Answers Question about the Color of the Sky

People have been asking questions about the color of the sky for a very, very long time. In fact, there are literally stories about how the sky picked up its color, which says a lot about how long people have been wondering. In modern times, we actually know the answer, though most of us probably can’t explain it offhand. Essentially, what happens is that air molecules scatter blue light waves, thus making blue the dominant color in the sky during the day. Blues and purples have shorter wavelengths than other colors, which indicates that they are more energetic than their different-colored counterparts.

19. Answers Question about Red Skies

There is an old saying about red skies happening during the morning and during the night, which indicate bad things and good things when it comes to the weather. As it turns out, there is some basis to this saying, though it is much more applicable to some parts of the world than others. This is because the red color is caused by the sunlight reflecting off of the clouds, which has strong implications for whether clouds are moving in or not.

20. Has a Quiz

For those who are confident in their weather knowledge, Intellicast offers a little quiz about the weather as well as related topics. There isn’t any particular importance to the weather quiz, but it should nonetheless provide those with a sense of pride in their weather knowledge with a chance to put it to the test. Likewise, people who aren’t so knowledgeable might be able to use it as a guide of what they should brush up on if they want to become more learned when it comes to the weather as well as related topics.