Meeting the Weather-Ready Nation Challenge in Rural Nevada

The diverse and rural nature of northern and central Nevada brings many challenges to build resilience and reduce risk from weather hazards.  High impact events that effect rural Nevada include: fast moving sage and grass fires, dry lightning, flash floods, winter storms and occasional freezing rain events. Lifespan of these events is often short, but leaves an indelible mark for those affected.  Higher resolution models and advances in remotes sensing (i.e. GOES-R) will help improve forecasting these fast evolving but localized high impact events. Forecast message delivery on the other hand may be the toughest challenge in a rural area. Farmers, ranchers, and miners needs differ than those that reside in a larger community or small city (e.g. Elko. NV). Cultural differences exist where Native American reservations have varying philosophies and lifestyles.  These communities may be separated by large distances, not served very well by a larger media market, and access to the latest technologies (i.e. cell phone or internet coverage) can be difficult.  Delivery of accurate forecast information and addressing uncertainty for these rare high impact events, need to be done expeditiously as “spreading the word” requires time and effort.