Leveraging Regional Level Partners to Educate Decision Makers on Weather, Water and Climate Intelligence

As technology advances and weather, water and climate intelligence is available on easily accessible platforms, it is more important than ever for the meteorological community to create and maintain relationships with decision makers and other subject-matter experts outside of agency or workplace boundaries at all levels. Local National Weather Service (NWS) offices support local, state and tribal partners during preparedness, response and recovery activities; however, when disasters reach beyond local or state resources, regional and national response and recovery support occurs. NWS Regional Operations Centers have been liaising with regional federal partners who are ready to support local, state, and tribal incidents when resources exceed the capacity of an entity.

Liaison activities involve meeting with preparedness and response groups including emergency communications, HAZMAT, fire weather, hydrology, climate, and all-hazards discussions. These meetings allow for networking between personnel in the emergency management community, and the opportunity to bring the appropriate meteorological, hydrological, and climate subject matter experts to the table for decision makers’ planning and operations. Building and maintaining rapport with decision makers and other subject-matter experts outside of workplace boundaries allows for an all-hazards approach to get the right people at the table when response and recovery occur in emergency management.

With probabilistic weather information and supercomputer advancement, communicating the uncertainty that exists beyond the easily accessible deterministic weather data found on digital platforms is a challenge that well-established relationships can help through the education of threats and hazards and developing personal rapport. The outcomes of some of these meetings across the Western US will be presented as attendees learn about many of the requests which come through a regional liaison’s lap throughout any given year.