Evolving the National Weather Service Communications Strategy to Support Public and Partners Building a Weather-Ready Nation

The National Weather Service’s communications strategy has evolved to provide partners and the public with the resources needed to build a Weather-Ready Nation. Weather-Ready Nation became the drumbeat of the National Weather Service in 2011, following a particularly devastating year of weather, water and climate events. Since that time, the National Weather Service has enhanced its communications methods to better equip the nation to help people prepare for extremes and make decisions that will keep people safe when faced with hazardous weather and water events.

The presentation will show recent evolutions and current steps being taken to update existing information on the NWS Safety pages and to provide a consistent format, making safety information easier to find and the use of the page more intuitive for partners and the public. It will also showcase the shifts from highlighting hazards during an awareness or preparedness week to highlighting them year-round, with a surge during times that the hazards are most relevant. The increase in social media use and the inclusion of social scientists in review of NWS messaging has vastly expanded the reach these new messaging techniques have had. Participants will also have an opportunity to comment on new communications tools in the works that target organizations and educators to further increase the number of folks who are weather-ready.