Advancing Equitable Service Delivery for a Weather-Ready Nation

In 2023, the historic number of 28 separate billion dollar weather and climate disaster events (i.e., severe storms, floods, tropical cyclones, wildfire, winter storm, drought/heatwave) exceeded the record of billion dollar disaster events (NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), 2024). The total cost of these events was $92.9 billion, and almost 500 deaths, which was the eighth most disaster-related fatalities in the United States since 1980 (Smith, 2024). These increasing impacts of weather and climate disaster events signify the need for a Weather-Ready Nation that is ready, responsive, and resilient. However, the 2021 NWS Service Equity Assessment (SEA) found gaps in the agency’s ability to meet the vision of a Weather-Ready Nation. Additionally, socially vulnerable and historically underserved communities are disproportionately impacted by anthropogenic activity, climate, and severe weather (Benevolenza et al., 2019; Hendricks and Van Zandt, 2021; Leap et al., 2024; Watts et al., 2021).

In support of the NWS vision of a Weather-Ready nation, the NWS established a Service Equity Priority Action Framework in 2023. This framework provides a holistic approach toward advancing equity internally and externally. The goal is to create new norms, practices and activities to ensure equity is consistently and systematically at the center of our operational, outreach, and education services. Current work has focused on developing strategic roadmaps, innovative tools, vigorous research, and policies to provide the resources and knowledge to best serve socially vulnerable and historically underserved communities. This panel will discuss the success, challenges, and the implementation plan for Priority Actions for the key areas of the NWS Service Equity Framework: Community Engagement, People and Policies, Training and Education, Tools and Technology, and Applied Research.