Disseminating Weather Information to Spanish-Speaking Communities from the NWS/WFO San Juan Perspective

The National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office (NWS/WFO) in San Juan serves the people of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands with an estimated total population of 3.3 million inhabitants. Puerto Rico’s official language is Spanish, and although most Puerto Ricans use English as a second language, there is still a great need to translate local products from English to Spanish. From impact-based decision support services to radio and television live interviews, social media posts and NOAA Radio recordings, all efforts are intended to fulfill NWS’s mission before, during, and after severe weather events. The office also provides translation services to programs that impact communities across the Caribbean, Central America, Gulf of Mexico and the continental United States. For instance, the El Niño Southern Oscillation discussion and a number of tropical weather products issued by National Center for Environmental Prediction and the National Hurricane Center, respectively, are some of the products translated by the NWS/WFO San Juan staff.

There are several challenges with providing a single translation that meets the needs of these diverse sets of customers. Challenges associated to meteorological words with no direct Spanish equivalent and variations in regional or local dialects have been resolved by adapting the Dictionary of Meteorology and Climatology (Allen Hornak K., 1997) along with the Royal Spanish Academy dictionary as the primary vocabulary sources. Then, a number of templates that summarize key weather and marine information, including watches and warnings have been developed to minimize the impact of time constraints, character and graphical limitations. Despite that, the success of these efforts falls in the knowledge transferred down to new generations of meteorologists, as well as in the willingness to receive feedback and evolve while ensuring the dissemination of accurate weather information to Spanish-speaking communities.