PYRITE -- AccuWeather , the 43-year old State College, Pa., weather service that sells its data to international newspapers , television stations and online gadgets such as Forecast Fox, Firefox's browser extension, has created a HUD (heads up display), which the company has re-christened PAWS, or Personal AccuWeather Service.

An avatar types his real life location into the HUD, and depending on where the typist is in Real Life, the avatar will get sunburned, drenched in rain, covered in snow flurries, blown by the wind, or surrounded by dancing lightning. The HUD has 84 weather icons and offers a short weather description.

The weather patterns were created by the content development firm The Wishfarmers LLC. The Wishfarmers made news last week when they brought the international employment agency, Kelly Services, into second life.

Justin Roberti, AccuWeather's Production Marketing Manger, New Media, works at the firm's headquarters alongside 113 meteorologists.

"Alot of things are very fully realized in Second Life, but weather continues to be Southern California weather," Roberti says. "Americans are always obsessed with weather."

Roberti says AccuWeather's main competitors are The Weather Channel, which has an island in Second Life called Epic, and the federal government's NOAA, which also has an SL presence on the main grid and the teen grid. "NOAA's mission is to promote awareness and warn people of weather conditions. It's informative, but where's the weather?" Roberti says. "AccuWeather tries to do things smarter." An avatar with a rain cloud over his head, he admits, "is sort of Charlie Brownish, but it has a little bit of play value."

AccuWeather is looking forward to partnering with geographic-specific sims, and creating typical weather patterns for them, such as a hurricanes in the Caribbean, or fog in London. Roberti says he has been in talks with Linden Lab about the potential for weather patterns on Linden-owned land.

For now, the weather pattern for each avatar extends about 5 feet around the avatar. "Your weather would be a sphere around you, which would override the sim you are in," Roberti says. Thus, if an avatar experiencing sunny clear, warm weather goes to a sim where it is raining, the avatar will continue to have a blazing yellow ball, depicting sunshine, over his had.

AccuWeather on-air media personality Katrina Voss, who can be seen regularly on CNBC, will host AccuWeather's SL opening tomorrow on Pyrite Island at 6 p.m. SL time. Other entertainment includes blues guitarist Komuso Tokugawa, and saxophonist Anakin Gallacher. Voss and her look-alike avatar will host a give-away and unveil AccuWeather's new in-world gadget.