Weatherzone, known before 9 August 2010 as The Weather Company and still trading under this name, is the main provider of value-added meteorological services in Australia. Their main business lines are services to energy, utilities and mining companies. They also provide services to ports, insurance and large retail corporations. They specialize in aggregating content from a large range of private and government funded organisations (e.g. Bureau of Meteorology, Environmental Protection Authority, World Meteorological Organisation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation etc.). Weatherzone is the major commercial weather company that provides meteorological services in Australia.
History
Weatherzone was founded in 1998 by former Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) meteorologist, Mark Hardy, providing graphics, scripts and weather briefings for television weather presentations. On 9 August 2010 The organisation changed its name from The Weather Company to Weatherzone. <!--it's clearly happened, but we need a citation for the exact date--> It still trades as The Weather Company Pty Ltd.
Weatherzone was part of Fairfax's Digital Ventures group of companies and in September 2013 Charles Solomon was appointed Managing Director.
In 2015 Weatherzone expanded into Africa with an investment in South Africa based AfricaWeather.
Weatherzone also operates the largest total lightning detection network in Australia.
On 1 October 2019 Fairfax's 75% stake in Weatherzone was acquired by US-based DTN for an undisclosed sum.
Services
Weatherzone runs their own WRF computer model which is used to produce content for the subscription product, Weatherzone Pro (formerly Weatherzone Silver), and feeds into their Opticast forecasting model. It employs a team of meteorologists to offer a meteorological alternative to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). Weatherzone also provides services for displaying weather on websites. Some large sites that use this include Elders, an Australian agricultural site, News Corp Australia (formerly News Limited) and Fairfax Media.