Hurricanes Stir Up Strong Winds, Heavy Rain, High Web Traffic

Online coverage of Hurricane Charley helped WRAL.com set a new record for traffic on Saturdays. The storm helped generate 2.2 million page views on August 14, 2004, as Charley came ashore in South Carolina and tracked north along coastal North Carolina.

The record traffic level was about seven times the average page views on Saturdays. The three most popular pages were - not surprisingly -- the homepage, Doppler5000 index page and the weather page, which accounted for about one-fourth of all page views that day.

Page views peaked between 9 and 10 a.m. at 188,000.

While Charley helped WRAL.com set a single-day record, the 13.5 million page views for the entire week did not beat the previous weekly record of 15.8 million page views Sept. 13 -19, 2003. That's the week Hurricane Isabel came calling on our state. Isabel also helped the site set a monthly record of 38.4 million page views.

The all-time daily record was set Feb. 26, when a winter storm helped deliver 6.6 million page views for the site.

Thanks to WRAL-TV's Cindy Sink & John Conway for this capcom story.

POSTED: September 13, 2004