Timely monitoring and prediction of the trajectory of seasonal influenza epidemics allows hospitals and medical centers to prepare for, and provide better service to, patients with influenza. The CDC’s ILINet system collects data on influenza-like illnesses from over 3,300 health care providers, and uses this data to produce accurate indicators of current influenza epidemic severity. However, ILINet indicators are typically reported at a lag of 1-2 weeks. Another source of severity data, Google Flu Trends, is calculated by aggregating Google searches for certain influenza related terms.