The National Weather Service is improving the way they communicate important and live-saving weather information. 

I spoke with NWS Director Ken Graham at the 2023 National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Convention in Birmingham, Alabama this month about how the agency is improving their communication and collaboration with media and emergency personnel.

The NWS just rolled out NWSChat 2.0. Graham said “it’s our way at the National Weather Service to communicate in big events. It could be a hurricane, a tornado or a flood and you communicate with emergency managers and also the media all on the same platform.”

For the public, this means your local emergency officials and TV meteorologists will be consistent in communicating weather information.

“People respond better when they get one message… This is a way to get everyone the same piece of information from everybody. When everyone speaks with one voice, you get a better response and it saves lives. This is a big deal and I am really proud of this accomplishment,” the NWS Director told me.

The National Weather Service is also expanding how that disseminates information in multiple languages, from Spanish to Chinese. They are using artificial intelligence and machine learning to achieve this goal while utilizing their staff to correct any language nuances.

The agency has completed the Spanish translation and is putting the finishing touches on a Chinese translation. Following that, the NWS will provide Vietnamese, Samoa and other translations in the next six years.

“I will have the top 12 languages spoken in the United States, I’ll have them all converted at critical information over the next six years,” Graham said.

The director says multilingual weather information is important to communicate weather risks to vulnerable and underserved communities.

Besides launching NWSChat 2.0 and converting weather information in multiple languages, more improvements and changes are coming down the road for the NWS that will help the public, your local officials and our Spectrum News meteorologists. Plus, the agency is looking to update their radars too.

“We got some big initiatives, we are even redoing Weather.gov, so we are going to have a prototype new website in 2024. It’s going to have vulnerable communities, language built in from day one.”

Graham says he wants to serve the public to cut through the red tape.

“It’s all part of our transformation. We’re really looking at doing things differently. We’re really looking at cutting the cord to get closer to emergency managers and those decision makers. If we can add time on a timeline that gets more people to prepare and that saves lives,” Graham said.

Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.