Weatherboy:
While people first heard of Weatherboy through broadcast channels, we’re seeing more and more people interact with us primarily through social media channels. With people consuming weather information in different ways nowadays, how is the National Hurricane Center keeping up with peoples’ changing habits?
Dr. Knabb:
We try to evolve with what our public and our partners are using and we want to continue to add tools to the box in how we communicate. That includes being more and more active on social media platforms and we’re continuing to discuss how we plan to use those platforms even more as we head into this hurricane season. And we’re continuing to develop and roll-out new products, warnings, and services that have a better chance of being clearly understood by everyone. And we ultimately want to make sure a consistent message gets out there when a storm is on our doorstep.
Weatherboy:
When it comes to social media, how can our fans connect with you and the Hurricane Center?
Dr. Knabb:
The National Hurricane Center has a Facebook page and multiple Twitter accounts. @NHC_Atlantic will give you Twitter messages when key products come out; we also have @NHC_Surge account which is our storm surge unit which is providing both educational and outreach information about storm surge and real-time information as a storm is approaching. And then I have an account, @NHCDirector, it’s just me, I don’t outsource it, I don’t automate it, and if it came out of that account, I wrote it at that time. Of course, that means there will be periods when I’m busy doing other things and you won’t hear from me and then all of a sudden I’ll blast a bunch of stuff out. I use that year-round. During a storm approach, when I can, and when we’re doing all of our outreach and education other times of the year. It’s really a good eyes and ears to what’s going on out there to what other people are thinking and understanding and what we can help clarify. One thing about social media, is that it’s not just benefiting the people that have social media accounts. For example, if I’m a television meteorologist, and I’m following emergency managers from the weather service or the hurricane center from Twitter, I can get timely reliable information directly from the source and put it on television almost immediately on a crawl or verbally and so my dad, or grandmother, who will never be on social media, are benefiting from it even though they don’t know about it.
Weatherboy:
Do you find yourself working more with the likes of Weatherboy that have large social media followings?
Dr. Knabb:
One thing is clear: our media partners do not just constitute television folks and radio folks like maybe it used to be. Now we spend time working with media partners that are bloggers or run a website or are active on social media because that’s another key avenue to get to folks that may not be using utilizing the traditional media anymore. I know plenty of people that don’t even have cable or satellite television anymore because they’re utilizing internet resources to get their information. So we want to meet all kinds of folks where they live and operate on a daily basis so we’re branching out more and more with who we engage when it comes to media. And we also hope that by being active on social media and sending information out, that just about anybody can use that information to send it out to their social media followers or utilize it through other avenues that they have. So it’s just another tool in the box to use social media. We haven’t figured out any one platform that gets to everybody and solves all of our problems so we have to utilize all of them.
Weatherboy:
We often describe a ‘democratization of the data’ that’s occurring, where people that don’t have proper meteorological training have access to forecast models and other data and share it freely over the internet. Is the National Hurricane Center concerned about this?
Dr. Knabb:
The public has access to a lot more information in a variety of disciplines than it used to be the case in years past, and as with every new tool or technology, there are pro’s and con’s to that. We have to make sure people are still relying on official information from government folks who are issuing warnings or evacuation instructions so that people are not confused. A clear message from government officials when things are really serious is important. And a consistent message overall from the government ,from our media partners, and what’s being discussed among the public , is a benefit for keeping people as safe as possible. So what we try to do is make sure that everyone has access to all of the information; we don’t hide anything. But we still continue to explain what we think that means and focus the public’s attention on the key things they should be doing to keep themselves safe. Our mission is safety of life and protection of property and we have emergency management partners who have a very similar mission. And we have media partners of all kinds that we rely on to get those messages out. And by partnering together, I think we can achieve that goal of getting a consistent message out to the public so that people are clear on what they should do so they can keep themselves safe.
Weatherboy:
Some seasonal hurricane outlooks are calling for a near-normal or below-normal Atlantic hurricane season. What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Knabb:
There’s a big difference between what the overall seasonal activity level will be, how busy it will be, and how bad it’ll be locally where you live. We’ve seen past hurricane seasons that have been way above average where not one hurricane hit the US and multiple times we’ve seen past hurricane seasons that have been below average where a major hurricane has devastated some part of the United States. In 1992, there were 7 total storms and 1 major hurricane that year, and that one major hurricane was Category 5 Andrew which hit south Florida and then went on to hit Louisiana. And I personally went through the 1983 Hurricane Season which had four total storms, 3 hurricanes and 1 major, way below average, and that 1 major hurricane hit where I lived in Houston, Texas, which was Alicia. So clearly I don’t prepare any differently for what the upcoming hurricane season is going to bring based on the seasonal forecast because we can’t forecast we’re they’re going to go this far in advance. And if just one of the storms that forms is a hurricane and heads your way, even though you didn’t think it wasn’t going to happen to you, and if you hadn’t prepared in advance, then the storm itself and the aftermath are going to be a lot more unpleasant.
More on Dr. Knabb:
A member of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Knabb became the Director of the NHC in June 2012. Prior to that, Dr. Knabb was the Weather Channel’s on-air Hurricane Expert and Tropical Science Program Manager. And before his television career with the Weather Channel, Dr. Knabb was the Deputy Director of the NOAA’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.
