Whether planning trips across the country or just across town, 57 million Americans made checking weather on the Web part of their daily routine in June 2013. More than a quarter of Web users visited a site or used a desktop application in the Weather category during the month, as visits typically peak during the hot summer months when Americans travel most. When you add in the 88 million iPhone and Android smartphone users who used a Weather app in June, it’s clear that this frequent subject of small talk can be serious business for digital publishers.
The Weather Channel’s online hub was the top brand among weather sites in June, attracting more than 37 million unique U.S. visitors. Other popular Weather sites and desktop apps during the month included AccuWeather.com (eight million visitors) and WeatherBug (seven million visitors), while the NOAA’s website attracted a fair share of both professional meteorologists and amateur weather buffs across the country.
Overall, visitors spent an average of 24 minutes per person on these sites, and they checked for updates often—11 visits per person on average.
| Rank | Website | Unique Audience | Time Spent per person (hh:mm:ss) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weather category | 57,443,000 | 0:23:55 | |
| 1 | Weather Channel Network | 37,400,000 | 0:20:31 |
| 2 | AccuWeather.com | 8,440,000 | 0:17:08 |
| 3 | WeatherBug | 7,331,000 | 0:30:21 |
| 4 | NOAA | 6,997,000 | 0:13:44 |
| 5 | MSN Weather | 5,552,000 | 0:06:25 |
| 6 | Weather Underground | 4,169,000 | 0:11:03 |
| 7 | Weather Central | 1,765,000 | 0:08:29 |
| 8 | JustWeather.com | 535,000 | 0:08:09 |
| 9 | World Weather Online | 409,000 | 0:01:19 |
| 10 | Find Weather | 385,000 | 0:01:05 |
| Source: Nielsen | |||
Overall, 206 million Americans were active online in June 2013. Among U.S. Web users, Google was the top Web brand, attracting 161 million unique U.S. visitors to its sites during the month. On average, Americans spent more than 26 hours surfing the Web in June and visited 91 unique domains per person. Visitors to Facebook’s website spent the most time among the top 10 Web brands, averaging nearly 6.5 hours per person.
| Rank | Website | Unique Audience | Time Spent per person (hh:mm:ss) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 160,680,000 | 1:53:15 | |
| 2 | 132,285,000 | 6:24:02 | |
| 3 | Yahoo! | 127,176,000 | 2:10:41 |
| 4 | MSN/WindowsLive/Bing | 118,011,000 | 1:14:36 |
| 5 | YouTube | 112,274,000 | 1:38:39 |
| 6 | Microsoft | 80,717,000 | 0:44:42 |
| 7 | AOL Media Network | 78,340,000 | 1:59:20 |
| 8 | Amazon | 75,872,000 | 0:38:19 |
| 9 | Wikipedia | 68,564,000 | 0:21:05 |
| 10 | Ask Search Network | 62,457,000 | 0:11:15 |
| Source: Nielsen | |||