Hurricane Sandy Blows Up Digital Storm

The Weather Channel is already reporting record usage for page views and app usage

By George Winslow -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/29/2012 1:09:27 PM

Hurricane Sandy hasn't hit land yet, but the traffic at The Weather Channel's digital properties is already blowing towards record numbers.

On Sunday, the company saw 105 million page views (the fifth highest page view ever) and 40 million video streams, which the most in one day ever. It was also a top 10 day for daily visits, with 21 million visits, and visitors, with 14 million.

Judging by early traffic on Monday, the company expects page views to set a record.

On the mobile web, Sunday was the second highest all-time page view day with 16.3 million behind last year's "Colossal storm" on Feb. 2, 2011 when there were 17 million page views.

In terms of mobile and tablet apps, Sunday also set records for page views, with 109 million page views, and was the highest ever day for video starts, with 1.6 million video starts for mobile and tablet apps combined.

But those numbers are also likely to rise. Last year, the company saw notable upticks in mobile activity on the web and apps during Joplin and Tuscaloosa disasters after the power went out.

The company also reports that they have already seen 1 million total live video starts between their live streams on weather.com, YouTube and wunderground.com since they started streaming on Sunday and mid-day on Monday in the eastern time zone.