How Weather Spotters Contribute to Forecasting and Risk Communication

Weather spotters play an important role in the severe weather warning system. Since the 1970s, the National Weather Service (NWS) has trained citizens to collect, confirm, verify, or supplement radar and other data, thus, “serving as the nation’s first line of defense against severe weather.” Today, “SKYWARN,” is a volunteer program with over 350,000 trained spotters. The network includes police and fire personnel, 911 dispatchers, emergency management workers, public utility workers, and other concerned citizens.

In a recent study, the research team of Brooke Liu, Anita Seate, Irina Iles, and Emina Herovic from the University of Maryland, College Park, interviewed the co-founders of the Nashville-based network, Nash Severe Weather, along with the government scientists that they work with. Their case study, as presented below, uncovers some best practices for collaboration between citizen and government scientists; and explores what Nash Severe Weather contributes to the science of weather communication.

Nash Severe Weather and Citizen Science

Since 2010, Nash Severe Weather has coordinated weather information collected by their trained spotters in the Nashville, Tennessee, area. They share this information on Twitter, via their website, and directly with the NWS Weather Forecast Office (WFO) in Nashville via NWS Chat. In 2016, the founders of Nash Severe Weather received the Walter J. Bennett Public Service Award from the National Weather Association (National Weather Association 2019). 

Nash Severe Weather describes their goal as providing the residents in these counties with more, easier-to-understand, and actionable information than the information available on mobile weather applications. The group cautions that they are not meteorologists; however, they do monitor radar, manage their own camera network, and staff their own mobile rig. 

Additionally, they use radar data and the NWS’s internal chat room to communicate severe and hazardous weather information for their counties. Nash Severe Weather also functions as the NWS SKYWARN social media coordinators for Nashville. In this capacity, they coordinate and share via Twitter (using the hashtag #tSpotter) severe and hazardous weather reports received from members of the community (Nashville Severe Weather 2019). In other words, Nash Severe Weather not only functions as a citizen scientist group, but also aids the NWS in communicating their weather science to the public.

Within meteorology, citizen scientists function as storm spotters and storm chasers. Storm spotters are concerned citizens who provide weather observations to law enforcement, emergency managers, and the NWS. Citizen science projects in meteorology include the Cyclone Center, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network, and the Meteorological Phenomena Identification Near the Ground project (mPING)—all of which invite citizens to provide or analyze storm information. Overall, the research record indicates citizen scientists can help the weather enterprise by providing needed in situ observations and analyzing storm data. When spotters are able to supply ground information from key locations, they can be vital in achieving the NWS’s mission of protecting life and property and quickly providing severe weather information to the public.

What Motivates These Citizen Scientists?

Previous studies have suggested that it is difficult to recruit citizen scientists. But the founders of Nash Severe Weather three main themes that motivate the founders of Nash Severe Weather: weather passion, 24/7 weather coverage, and hyperlocal weather coverage.

Passion for the weather

All three creators of Nash Severe Weather have a deep passion for the weather. The founder of the group shared: “So, I’m a weather nerd…My friends started bugging me about it. I got sick of texting them in small increments…so I put it on Twitter.” The second citizen scientist who helped create the group shared similar feelings, “Both of us were kind of stoked by taking the reports from amateur radio, we knew that the amateur radio reports were credible. And I would take those reports…put them directly onto Twitter.”

The third citizen scientist who contributes to managing Nash Severe Weather is also a weather enthusiast. Unlike the other two creators, he has a background in meteorology, as he studied broadcast meteorology in college. 

Providing wall-to-wall weather coverage

The creators of Nash Severe Weather take pride in offering 24 h per day/7 days per week severe weather coverage when they need to, in part because they are not beholden to financial support from advertisers. The creators also are proud that they are able to “beat” local media, and sometimes the Weather Service, in covering severe weather because they can go live on a storm via Twitter any time. 

Providing hyperlocal weather coverage

Relatedly, a third reason why the creators of Nash Severe Weather became citizen scientists is to provide hyperlocal weather coverage. As the founder shared, “[The] Weather service covers 39 counties, TV covers probably more than that. We cover two counties.”

The government scientists we interviewed concurred that one of the primary benefits of Nash Severe Weather is their hyperlocal focus that effectively communicates science. As one government scientist noted: “With humor and that really hyper local level…They’re able to take what we’re saying and word it so Joe Blow can understand it and I think they’re amazing.” 

How the Relationship between Citizen and Government Science was Built

Government scientists and citizen scientists both described how their relationship formed through taking a chance. As the founder of Nash Severe Weather recalled,

I sent him [government scientist] an email. ‘I’m getting this report way before you guys. Are you looking at this at all?...I was like, ‘Look, I'm a lawyer, if I act like an idiot, you can get me disbarred.’ And, so we went and sat in a meeting for an hour…and then from there, they [NWS] treated us as the media.

Another reason why the Weather Service and Nash Severe Weather took a chance on building a relationship is that they are “weather nerds” with a passion for the same science. Additionally, Nash Severe Weather and the Weather Service have the same goal: to protect people and property during severe weather.

The importance of complementary functions

The Weather Service and Nash Severe Weather have sustained their relationship through providing complementary functions. Government scientists focus on forecasting and issuing warnings, and social media sometimes need to be secondary. Conversely, citizen scientists can put social media and public engagement at the forefront. As one government scientist explained,

A lot of times, especially if it’s an extremely busy event, the social media takes a back seat. We try to have someone dedicated just to the social media. But even then, it may take a back seat just because so much is going on at the same time when there’s a big severe weather event.

Another government scientist shared: “Nash Severe Weather gets the bulk of those [public questions] and they take the time to answer those. God bless them.”

Expanding the weather enterprise family

Citizen scientists and government scientists emphasized the importance of out-of-office relationship building, which created a weather enterprise family of sorts. As one of the government scientists put it,

The Nash Severe Weather guys are super. One of them and his wife opened up their house to the whole group. So, a handful of us Weather Service people and most of the county [emergency management] coordinators all met at their place last year for a big cookout, an afternoon long cookout

Government scientists involve Nash Severe Weather in their community events as well, such as during Severe Weather Awareness Day. Building the weather enterprise family facilitates productive information flow during severe weather.

Using respect as a foundation

At the core of the relationship between Nash Severe Weather and the Weather Service is deep respect. As one of the founders of Nash Severe Weather observed: “It’s important that everybody be accountable. We aren’t accountable to the [TV] station manager, but we’re accountable to the Weather Service.” Along the same lines, a government scientist characterized Nash Severe Weather as follows:

If you look at their comments on the stuff that they put out, they’re very well trusted and so we have to capitalize on that…make sure that we maintain a great relationship with them.

The majority of government scientists expressed deep respect for Nash Severe Weather, characterizing them as “revolutionary,” “amazing,” “key partners,” “game-changers,” and “very successful.”

How Citizen Science Assists with Communication

Nash Severe Weather assists NWS scientists by facilitating the communication of weather science to the public. They do this in three primary ways:

Translating the science

Nash Severe Weather provides NWS scientists with a science translation function. This enables the local NWS office to focus on issuing tornado watches and warnings. For example, during a tornado watch, Nash Severe Weather tweeted: “Tornado Watch means conditions are favorable for tornadoes. We are currently under one of these. A warning means take cover! No warnings for us yet.” A hallmark of Nash Severe Weather’s communication is an informal, often humorous, approach. For example, they tweeted,

If you’re in a mobile home now would be a good time to visit family or friends in a more secure structure. You won’t have time to drive somewhere if you wait for a warning. Please read the preceding tweets as Pro-Preparedness not OMG the World is Ending! But it’s reasonable to be ready. Get ready, go about your evening, and keep an eye on the weather.

Acting as an information conduit

Another communicative benefit of citizen scientists is that they can amplify government risk communication by sharing information with other citizens. When serving as an information conduit, Nash Severe Weather frequently draws their followers’ attention back to the NWS, such as in this tweet:

Severe weather update thread, info from @NWSNashville When: Saturday 4 PM to Sunday 2 AM. We’re more likely to see impacts toward the latter end of that time frame. Main Threat will be Damaging Straight-Line Winds along with Brief Spin-up Tornadoes Possible and Flash Flooding.

To support Nash Severe Weather’s role as an information conduit, government scientists send information directly to Nash Severe Weather through NWS Chat.

Indeed, the government scientists we interviewed characterized Nash Severe Weather as “a key partner.” This partnership between Nash Severe Weather and the government scientists continues during quiet weather. For instance, Nash Severe Weather encourages their Twitter followers to sign up for NWS trainings and participate in community events sponsored by NWS.

Reinforcing the message

The third benefit of citizen scientists is that they provide message redundancy for government scientists’ risk communication. For example, the Weather Service tweeted the following after a tornado:

We are still gathering storm reports from Saturday’s severe storms. If you have any damage reports or photos you’d like to share with us, please reply below with a location, time, and photo (if you have one) plus use hashtag #tSpotter!

As can be seen in the quote, the Weather Service used Nash Severe Weather’s tSpotter hashtag to target citizen scientists. 

In the same vein, the creators of Nash Severe Weather emphasized the importance of “one weather message.” They shared,

...there has to be accountability. The accountability means, I can’t issue my own tornado warning…I have a lot of respect for what they do. Sometimes, I’ll have opinions that I’ll cut back on a little bit…or I’ll go to the [NWS scientists] and say, ‘Can I say this?’

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Citizen Science

Providing hyperlocal coverage is a benefit for both Nash Severe Weather and NWS scientists. For government scientists, our data additionally reveal that Nash Severe Weather provides an important situational awareness filter.

Situational awareness, or the ability to integrate important data streams from the environment, is important in forecasters’ severe weather decision-making (Hoffman et al. 2017). However, government scientists can be overwhelmed by the amount of environmental data available to them at any given time (Daipha 2015; Hoffman et al. 2017). Government scientists agreed that Nash Severe Weather is “a game-changer” in terms of how they verify severe weather. In the words of one government scientist: “We don’t need to know everything out there ’cause we’d be overwhelmed. They’re sifting through the reports and basically forwarding on the things that they know will be important to us. So, that’s been fantastic.” 

For Nash Severe Weather, the only drawback is how time-consuming their work can be. They shared, “It’s some long nights sometimes and we [the Nash Severe Weather cofounders] made a pact to never miss a storm no matter where we were or what we were doing.”

The NWS scientists discussed more drawbacks. First, a few NWS scientists mentioned minor conflict over severe weather messaging. For example, one scientist shared,

A couple of the forecasters have mentioned that some of the things they [Nash Severe Weather] say might be, what’s the term? Maybe usurping their role or maybe they’re being more absolute, whereas we’re being more, showing the probability or the level of certainty.

The Nash Severe Weather citizen scientists noted that they “have gotten their hand slapped a few times…gotten a few text messages over the years saying ‘I wish you hadn’t said that’” from their NWS partners.

One government scientist also expressed concern that the Weather Service may be providing Nash Severe Weather “special information” that other partners may not receive, which could ultimately create tensions within the weather enterprise. Another government scientist conveyed unease about diluting the expertise of the Weather Service. He shared,

I think the more that people want to go into a forecasting enterprise, the less you’re going to see of the Weather Service being the so-called experts. I think we even see that locally…Nash Severe Weather is kind of rising up to take on somewhat of a forecaster presence.

So What Are the Takeaways?

The findings from this case study support a growing body of research that shows how traditional boundaries between citizens and experts are shifting. Nash Severe Weather and their government partners described both the citizen scientists and government scientists as belonging to the weather enterprise family. This blurring of boundaries is successful, in this case, due to a deep respect among citizen scientists and government forecasters.

The data from the interviews also underscores the importance of communication in relationship building. And when in-person meetings are not possible, supplying a direct, informal channel through which citizen scientists can interact with scientists in real time may also strengthen relationships and commitment. While having multiple channels for communication is important, for communication to be successful, it still needs to emphasize a deep commitment between the parties.

Prior research raised a major concern about the quality of data collected by citizen scientists (Bird et al. 2014; Crall et al. 2013). The study here concluded that the opposite was true. In this case, citizen scientist communities, such as the creators of Nash Severe Weather, vetted data provided by other citizens—thereby providing valuable quality control for their government scientist partners.

Another concern raised in prior research was challenges with recruiting citizen scientists. This study found the reverse, as citizen scientists recruited government scientists to collaborate (i.e., a bottom-up approach). The government scientists in this study recommended working with citizen science groups that were already established, rather than recruiting new groups.

As shown in this study, Nash Severe Weather has meaningfully improved the NWS’s capacity to predict and warn about severe weather by serving two critical functions: 1) the classic data collection/filtering role of citizen scientists and 2) the role of communicators of weather science. The success of citizen science initiatives in the weather domain may well rest on the government’s capacity to embrace citizen scientists as additional eyes on the storm and independent broadcasters of severe weather information.

This case study was excerpted from a longer article by Brooke Liu, Anita Seate, Irina Iles, and Emina Herovic. Any errors or omissions may be attributed to AMS Staff. Copyright remains with the AMS.