The document discusses the National Weather Service's use of Twitter to gather weather reports from the public. It outlines how people can tweet eyewitness weather observations using hashtags like #wxreport to share information about tornadoes, hail or flooding. The NWS wants to tap into these citizen reports to supplement its own data and get more real-time feedback. While tweets provide potential benefits, there are also disadvantages like incorrect reports that must be monitored. The NWS plans to expand its Twitter presence to gather more localized storm data.

1. 2011 Georgia Emergency Management Summit and Training Session Twitter and the National Weather Service By Tim Brice WFO El Paso May 25 th , 2011

2. Why even consider Twitter It is where the people are. It is how the public is communicating. It is how the public is getting their news. “ Rather than trying to convince the public to adjust to the way we at FEMA communicate, we must adapt to the way the public communicates by leveraging the tools that people use on a daily basis” FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate May 5 th 2011 Senate Subcommittee testimony

3. What is Twitter? According to Twitter , Twitter is: “ without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now.” Perhaps a less biased description of Twitter would: “ Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets .” - Wikipedia

4. What is a Tweet? It is a 140 character (or less) message that a user (tweeter) sends out that is posted on their Twitter home page and also sent to the tweeter’s subscribers called followers? Tweets can include: A simple text message Links to a picture Links to a web page

5. The advantages of Twitter Large user database 200+ million users around the world. 50+ million users in the U.S. Easy to get tweets into Twitter via web page, text, app, even land line phones. Easy to search tweets and get results through various programs and apps.

6. What Weather Info People Tweet Eyewitness weather info “ Golf ball size hail at my house” Benign weather info “ Sunny and warm today” Weather information “ There is flooding on the east side of town.”

7. How to hear and be heard Almost 65 million tweets a day How can you cut through all the junk to send or receive useful information? The answer is using tweet hash tags.

8. What are tweet hash tags Anyone can make up a hash tag Example of hash tags are: #EMAG11 #braves #savannah Hash tags allow someone to follow all the posts related to the hash tag. You can have more than one hast tag in a tweet

9. Weather Hash Tags Eyewitness weather info #wxreport Benign weather info #wxob Weather information #STwx (where ST is your state abbrev.)

10. Weather Hash Tags #wxreport #wxob #STwx (where "ST" is your state two letter id) For the #wxreport, it would cover significant weather the tweeter actually saw and would include: tornado, hail, snow greater than an inch, dense fog and dust, floods, strong winds etc. For the #wxob, it would cover weather observed that was not significant and would include: standard weather obs, non-significant weather etc. For the #STwx, it would cover weather information that would be useful to the public and would include: reported storm tracks, reported storm damages, road closures, watch and warning information etc.

11. NWS and Twitter The National Weather Service wants to tap into this army of weather enthusiasts (trained and untrained) who use Twitter and give them a quick easy way to transmit their weather reports.

12. What do the tweeters do? http://weather.gov/stormreports (public information page)

13. #wxreport plotted

14. #wxreport plotted

15. #wxreport plotted

16. Advantages/Disadvantages Advantages: Potential to receive hundreds of weather tweets You can monitor the tweets yourself Real time feedback for ongoing weather Reports and pictures and videos, oh my! Did I mention that it is free!!! Disadvantages : Some junk and spam tweets and incorrect observations Some tweeters are not following the specific format

17. NWS Twitter Future Continue the Storm Reports via Twitter Project June 1 st eight test offices get Twitter accounts including NHC County/Parish based Twitter accounts to feed warnings to If testing goes well, all offices to get Twitter accounts in the future.

18. Tim Brice [email_address] @timbrice17 NWS – El Paso TX Storm reports via Twitter project information (#wxreport): http://www.weather.gov/stormreports 3 rd Party page showing the mapped tweets: http://ow.ly/51rpm This presentation: http://ow.ly/51rmp Weather hash tags #wxreport , #wxob and #STwx Questions???