Weather.gov 2.0: When Every Word and Every Minute Matters

At the National Weather Service (NWS), our mission is to protect life and property, and to enhance the national economy. Our mandate is to serve every American. Our ability to fulfill our mission and mandate is based largely on our ability to reach the people we serve. However, more than 50% of all Americans have not visited Weather.gov in the past year, undermining our ability to serve our mission and mandate. A new Weather.gov must serve public and partners facing a hazard and help them make decisions when every word and every minute matters. This requires a consistent, location-first experience, adding more languages to the site, and compatibility with mobile screens to get the most important information in front of users as fast as possible. We are aiming for a new Weather.gov that focuses on the user, isn’t constrained by organizational boundaries, and reflects the integrity and care the NWS has for the people it serves.

We’ve been building the new site for 16 months. The first version included some of the features most commonly used by the public and partners, including point forecast pages, RADAR, and hazards. More recently, we’ve been prototyping language translations, highlighting local forecast expertise, and visualizing key forecast information. This is just the beginning. We’re rolling out new features every two weeks using modern software practices. We expect the new site to reach initial operating capability in late 2025, and in 2026 the site should become fully operational. We have a lot more work to do, but we are intent on doing this right, together.

Attendees of this session will see the progress that the weather.gov 2.0 team is making, gain an understanding of the foundational work that supports this effort, and hear about the next steps in this effort.