You take your pick of meteorological puns on this one, but its another example of Fairfax Digital focusing on one of their key business areas – online news and weather.

Fairfax Digital has taken a 75 per cent stake in The Weather Company and with it weatherzone.com.au. Mark Hardy, the founder of The Weather Company, holds the remaining share, and is being retained in the role of managing director.

The Weather Company provides weather content to organisations in the energy, insurance, telecommunications, retail, rural/ agricultural and media sectors, with clients including Network Ten, ABC, Elders, Ninemsn and AGL. Using data from a range of providers including the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the company produces bespoke forecasting services for larger clients and repackages weather and related content into simple feeds for smaller clients.

In addition to providing free content, The Weather Company’s weatherzone.com.au site provides detailed information to thousands of subscribers in the agriculture and marine professions, as well as outdoor enthusiasts.

Fairfax Digital CEO Jack Matthews said, Fairfax Digital is all about breaking news, and providing current weather information is the ultimate in breaking news.

Fairfax Digitals news sites and leading agricultural site farmonline.com.au currently provide weather forecasts from weatherzone.com.au and will continue to, as we constantly look to augment the service we provide our viewers and in particular, to rural and regional audiences. Weatherzone.com.au also provides services to a number of other companies throughout Australia and we would expect that to continue.

The Weather Company Managing Director Mark Hardy said, Fairfax Digitals experience and deep resources will allow us to further invest in our meteorological services and continue to deliver excellence in the presentation of credible weather content across a broad range of clients and industries.

The Weather Company was founded in 1998 with the goal of providing services to improve the presentation of weather in the Australian media. Full commercial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed.