On Weather and Internet Traffic Demand

Abstract

The weather is known to have a major impact on demand of utilities such as electricity or gas. Given that the Internet usage is strongly tied with human activity, one could guess the existence of similar correlation between its traffic demand and weather conditions. In this paper, we empirically quantify such effects. We find that the influence of precipitation depends on both time of the day as well as time of the year, and is maximal in the late afternoon over summer months.