New NOAA-funded social science research published online today in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society shows that the Spanish words currently used by NOAA’s National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for tornado warnings do not carry the same level of urgency needed to spur protective action as the English words used for these warnings.
New NOAA-funded social science research published online today in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society shows that the Spanish words currently used by NOAA’s National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for tornado warnings do not carry the same level of urgency needed to spur protective action as the English words used for these warnings. Though the research focuses on alert language for severe weather and tornadoes, it has implications for all weather hazards.
“Our research shows significant inequities in understanding watches and warnings between English and Spanish speakers,” said Joseph Trujillo-Falcón, the lead author of the publication, who works for NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations in Norman, Oklahoma. “To reduce this language barrier, our data supports using the Spanish word “vigilancia” for a tornado watch and the Spanish word “alerta” for a tornado warning,” said Trujillo-Falcón.
NOAA currently uses the Spanish word “vigilancia” for a watch and “aviso” for a warning. On its website, FEMA uses “advertencia” and “vigilancia” for a watch and “aviso” for a warning, but also uses “advertencia” and “amenaza” for watch and warning, respectively, in their social media messaging.
Read more at NOAA
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