Weather 'tweets' sprinkled in with forecasts

The Weather Channel on Thursday added Twitter comments about local conditions to forecasts broadcast to computers, televisions, and mobile devices. "Twitter gives voice and context to the topics people are most interested in, and everyone is interested in the weather," said Chloe Sladden, director of content and programming at the popular micro-blogging service. "By surfacing these conversations and providing human context around factual weather information, The Weather Channel Social brings weather alive." Twitter users could also sign up for feeds of "tweets" about weather in places that interest them or exchange comments at weather.com/social pages devoted to specific locations. Weather was described as among the most popular topics in Twitter comments, with US users firing off about 200 "tweets" on the subject every minute on a typical day and double that when "weather events" occur. "Weather is the ultimate social content; it's guaranteed to spark conversation among family, friends and complete strangers," said The Weather Channel Companies executive vice president Cameron Clayton. "Adding Social to all of our platforms makes our storytelling more complete," he added.