A Language Access Strategy for NOAA’s National Weather Service

The National Weather Service (NWS) strives to reduce and eliminate the systemic barriers that prevent historically underserved and vulnerable communities (HUSVCs) from receiving, understanding, and acting upon the NWS’s lifesaving information, products, and services. As such, the NWS Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBES) program has created a language strategy and roadmap for the NWS. The goal of the language strategy is to ensure that all information from the NWS is culturally and linguistically appropriate for all communities, especially vulnerable speakers, hearers, and signers of languages other than English.

This presentation provides an overview of the NWS Language Strategy and Roadmap including goals, and possible future collaborations with the weather, climate, and water enterprise. This presentation aims to showcase how the NWS is striving to reduce linguistic barriers in NWS services and products.