Social Media & the NWSPat Spoden, Chris Noles & Christine Wielgos

Why

• That is the way the world is moving– More information from many sources– We need to reach more people

• Twitter – 175 Million registered users (last Sep)• Facebook – 500 Million users (150 M in U.S.)

Why

• A group in Evansville started #tristatewx

• Monitoring this group during snowstorms earlier this year gave us a lot of information.– Reduced our need to call into the area to get

information

Quality Questions

• Since these are public postings, they are self-correcting. People want to be followed and respected. Bad reports will hurt your integrity, thus followers.

• This is different than someone calling our office with a bad report – no repercussion

Expansion

• We have expanded this to:– #nwspah– Plus another reserved for spotters

• Results– Over 60 tweets with just rain (March 14)– Hundreds with snow

Waiting to see…

• How this will work with severe (or near severe) weather– Public usually does not know severe criteria

• Still expect many more reports than we currently receive

Future

• NWS PAH Facebook by the end of April?– Some folks monitor Facebook through their

own account.– Continue to monitor Twitter

• Will we have our own “tweets”?