[1] The company is based in San Francisco, California and was founded in 1995 as an offshoot of the University of Michigan internet weather database.

[2][3] The group took its name from Bob Dylan's lyric "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", from his 1965 song "Subterranean Homesick Blues".

[4] The name, formerly UM-Weather, was changed to Weather Underground in 1991 due to feedback from the National Science Foundation[5] in response to Perry Samson's proposal for funding.

Jeff Masters, a doctoral candidate in meteorology at the University of Michigan working under the direction of Professor Perry Samson, wrote a menu-based Telnet interface in 1991 that displayed real-time weather information around the world.

Weather Underground president Alan Steremberg wrote "Blue Skies" for the project, a graphical Mac Gopher client, which won several awards.

[citation needed] Alan Steremberg also worked on the early development of the Google search engine with Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

[12][13] The site popularity also helped launch a television show hosted by meteorologist Mike Bettes, which aired on The Weather Channel from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

[16] On August 22, 2023, IBM agreed to sell The Weather Company to private equity firm Francisco Partners for an undisclosed sum.

[17] After the acquisition of the company was completed in February 2024, Weather Underground also became controlled by the American private equity firm.

From 2007 through early 2017 Richard B. Rood wrote blogs on climate change and societal response, with new entries on a weekly basis.

[33] On September 10, 2019, Weather Underground announced the discontinuation of its Email Forecast Program as of October 1, 2019, continuing the reduction in services noted above.