Ecosia partners with AccuWeather to bring superior weather information and unique Global Severe Weather Alerts to users, and to help make cities more climate resilient

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Aug 12, 2024, 03:01 ET

AccuWeather brings hyper-local forecasts and life-saving severe weather alerts to Ecosia's tree-planting search engine

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. and BERLIN, Aug. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- AccuWeather, the proven leader in weather forecast accuracy, and Ecosia, the world's largest not-for-profit search engine, today announce their partnership and product integration.

Over 20 million Ecosia users globally now have access to AccuWeather's superior weather information and unique Global Severe Weather Alerts, as part of an effort to accelerate awareness of critical weather incidents as they occur, and to expand Ecosia's product suite.

As part of the partnership, AccuWeather's API has been integrated into Ecosia's results for weather data, including Current Conditions, and Daily and Hourly Forecasts, and up-to-the-minute Alerts for locations in the U.S. and around the globe, all built on AccuWeather's superior collection of global, detailed, and local weather data to help people and companies make the best weather-impacted decisions.

Ecosia users will be able to view the new weather tool on mobile and desktop devices, simply by searching for the location they desire and adding "weather" as the search key term. In addition to hourly, daily and weekly weather forecasts, the product integration will alert users to severe weather events including dangerous high and low temperatures. The partnership also showcases the unique AccuWeather Air Quality Scale that helps individuals quickly understand the impact air pollution exposure will have on their health, helping them make the best decisions about air quality risks around the world."

AccuWeather and its wholly owned subsidiary, Plume Labs, combine their respective forecasting and air pollution expertise to provide these superior air pollution forecasts, warnings, and insights.

Plume Labs pioneered the air quality forecasting industry by advancing geospatial machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to map and predict air pollution. It provides the most accurate data with the broadest coverage, with current conditions and forecasts for the entire world at a market-leading resolution of 0.2 to 2 kms, down to street level in U.S. and European urban areas.

Ecosia, as an organization, plans to use the integration to help drive its own coordinated efforts to tackle the climate crisis. Ecosia announced a partnership with AI-powered satellite interpretation and reforesting company Kanop to significantly enhance its forest regeneration tracking earlier this year.

The partnership with AccuWeather expands Ecosia's access to real-time weather and climate data to help inform future locations of urban tree-planting projects. AccuWeather's powerful weather data is the cleanest and most accurate set of past, current, and forecast weather conditions with the greatest temporal resolution (minutes or hours), greatest spatial resolution (downscaled to 1 km) and greatest number of parameters (300) available. AccuWeather APIs offer developers access to its superior collection of global, detailed, and local weather data, accessible in over 200 languages and dialects.

The data will help Ecosia to identify areas with extremely high urban temperatures and identify areas with low or no tree-cover. Ecosia's UK team is also planning to use AccuWeather data to in part monitor the health of its NHS tree-planting projects, which were planted in 2020 as a tribute to the UK's health service during the COVID pandemic.

AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter: "Extreme and severe weather events in the United States and around the world are becoming more frequent, having a greater impact, and affecting places where people may not be as prepared to handle them. The amplification of some of these severe weather events are one of the ways people around the world are experiencing climate change."

"We've seen with climate change that severe weather threats, including extreme heat, are happening outside of the time of year and places that people typically associate with heat waves," Porter went on to say. "Do not be lulled into any false sense of security. A severe weather event can develop anywhere when the ingredients come together."

Dozens of temperature records have been shattered across the United States this summer. More than 240 million people in America experienced temperatures soaring above 90°F on a single day in July. Summerlike heat is expected to linger well into autumn. The AccuWeather 2024 U.S. Fall Forecast predicts temperatures are expected to hover 1 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit or more above the historical average across much of the country, most of the time, from September through November. AccuWeather's team of long-range experts say the highest temperature departures are expected across parts of the Great Lakes region, the Midwest and the Rockies.

"We have seen a surge in weather and climate related searches over the past few years, and at Ecosia, it's been a drive for our product team to provide a tool which better informs our users on live weather conditions wherever they live. Most recently, the h eatwaves in the United States have been of particular interest to our community and to our team working on urban ecosystems," said Christian Kroll, CEO at Ecosia. "We know that trees can help. In fact, they can cool their surroundings by up to 53°F (12°C) by providing shade and bringing moisture back into the air."

Ecosia has existing projects in the U.S. that focus on urban tree planting in historically red-lined areas to address heat and health challenges of the community.

"AccuWeather has worked relentlessly to improve and enhance our forecasts, and the way we communicate the impacts and risks, for the past 62 years," said AccuWeather CEO Steven R. Smith. "Our mission has never wavered; we help protect lives and property around the clock, around the world. We are proud to bring our data and forecasting expertise to the millions of users that rely on Ecosia every day."

About AccuWeather

AccuWeather, recognized and documented as the most accurate and most used source of weather forecasts and warnings in the world, has saved over 10,000 lives, prevented injury to over 100,000 people, and saved companies tens of billions of dollars through better planning and decision-making.

Billions of people around the world rely on AccuWeather's proven Superior Accuracy^™ across our consumer digital platforms. AccuWeather.com is the #1 weather destination and one of the top 100 most-visited websites in the world, and our award-winning AccuWeather app delivers detailed real-time forecasts to millions of smartphones.

AccuWeather forecasts also appear on digital signage, in 700 newspapers, are heard on over 400 radio stations, and viewed on 100 television stations. The AccuWeather Network and AccuWeather NOW^® reach an audience of over 125 million on cable and streaming platforms including DirecTV, Charter Communications - Spectrum, Verizon, Philo, Fubo, Frndly TV, Comcast's Xfinity X1 and Xfinity Stream, Roku, Xumo, Red Box, Rockbot, LG, and Amazon Freevee.

AccuWeather For Business serves more than half of the Fortune 500 companies and thousands of other businesses and government agencies globally.

Visit accuweather.com for the most accurate hyperlocal forecasts, weather news, and information, and download the free AccuWeather app for Android or iOS.

About Ecosia
Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Ecosia is the world's largest not-for-profit search engine, with 20 million users globally. The tech company dedicates 100% of its profits to the planet and has collaborated with local communities in over 35 countries to plant more than 200 million trees. In 2014 Ecosia was the first company in Germany to be accredited as a B Corporation and in 2017 it built the first of a growing portfolio of solar plants, which now produce enough energy to power all searches twice over. In 2018 Ecosia gave away its shares to the Purpose Foundation, to assure that it can never be sold and that no one, including the founder, can profit or receive dividends from the company. Ecosia was founded by Christian Kroll in 2009.

Visit ecosia.org to learn more.

CONTACT: [email protected]

SOURCE AccuWeather