30 June 2013
Why Depending On Facebook for Severe Weather Warnings is A Bad Idea
Posted by Dan Satterfield
Following someone you trust for accurate weather info on social media is a great idea, but twitter is by far the better to depend on for weather warnings.
James Spann presented an excellent talk last week at the 41st AMS Broadcast Conf. in Nashville.
James Spann (meteorologist for the ABC affiliate in Birmingham, AL.) spoke at the AMS Conference on Broadcast Meteorology last week, and made an interesting point about using social media for weather warnings. Be very careful! Young people especially tend to get most of their news and information from mobile devices, using social media apps etc. During the record tornado outbreak in April 2011, many viewers had no power, or were in shelters, and trying to get info from James via Facebook.
Here is what they probably did not know: Facebook filters posts. I have over 24,000 followers on my Facebook page, but less than 10% will see any one post! Twitter is a much better way of getting warnings and the best way of all is to download the local weather app from a TV station you rely on. The TV station I work for (WBOC in Salisbury, Maryland) has an app that will warn you of a severe weather threat, and you can watch us live on it as well from a safe shelter, as long as you have 3g or a wifi signal. Many other stations have similar apps as well, but all of the posts on our Facebook pages are relayed to twitter just in case.
Twitter seems to be the best social media for warnings, because many broadcast meteorologists use a hashtag that you can search for and get weather messages. We use #Delmarvawx, but you should check and see what hash-tag is being used by a source you trust. As far as I can tell, twitter also does not filter my posts. I would also search for your trusted weather geek on Google Plus. This is also a good place for weather info and I can tell you almost all meteorologists who work on TV are already there.
The conference last week was superb and I am just back home here in Maryland. Look for several more posts about it. I learned much and want to share it! This conference tends to attract those on air weathercasters who have a significant science background. If your local weather person was gone last week, then he may have been there.
I have known many of these folks for years, and we all one thing in common: We deeply care about giving our viewers accurate weather information. We also tend to love Earth Science. I’m currently the chairman of the AMS committee on station science and we programmed a portion of the conference. We brought in experts in the field of geology, astronomy, climate change, and environmental education. I’ll share much from their presentations soon.
Me on Google Plus.
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.
Or you could go to the local national weather service site and check directly: They do list warnings there also. If you have internet access, then this works well.
Absolutely. There are several options, but we need to get the message out not to rely on Facebook alone.
This is actually a message that on air mets like me need to know more than the public. It’s critical to our work flow, Facebook should be a lower priority than Twitter or our station news apps.
Twitter is by far the best way to receive severe alerts (assuming we’re keep the discussion within the box of “social media”). Google Plus doesn’t filter posts, as far as I’m aware, but there’s also no way to automate its posts using external services, unlike Twitter. So if you want the fastest alerts on social media, Twitter is your service!
Great post, though!
Does Facebook filter your weather posts? Time to dump Facebook anyway. Too many adds.