NWS Southern Region Introduces Spanish Language
Forecasts and Alerts on the Internet

Forecast offices within the Southern Region of the National Weather Service now feature Spanish language forecasts, watches, warnings, advisories and hazardous weather outlooks on the Internet. Each Web site of the 32 Weather Forecast Offices in 10 southern states from New Mexico to Georgia and Florida, plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, launches to a watch, warning and advisory map containing the link "Experimental: en español." Selecting this link sends visitors instantly to weather information in Spanish.

"This exciting feature could well be a model for National Weather Service Web sites nationally," said Brig. Gen. David L. Johnson, USAF (ret.), director of the National Weather Service. "It provides an important opportunity to better communicate critical information to millions of people in fulfilling our mission of saving lives and property."

The Hispanic population in the United States is the fastest growing segment of our society," said Bill Proenza, director, National Weather Service Southern Region. "This new service represents a major step forward in providing easier access to vital, life-saving weather information and significantly reduces the potential language barrier for millions of our citizens."

According to U.S. Census Bureau data on persons over the age of five, approximately 28 million people come from homes where Spanish is spoken. In the National Weather Service Southern Region, nearly 13 million people come form Spanish-speaking households.

In April, NWS Southern Region Headquarters (SRH) Information Technology Analyst Leon Minton, WFO El Paso Information Technology Officer Rod Heckel and Fort Worth Journeyman Forecaster Dennis Cain joined forces to meet an obvious need for this substantial segment of the Region's population. "In order to re-create the maps, zip code/city search engine, local observations and Point Forecast pages, we created 60 Spanish versions of corresponding English scripts," said Minton. "Dennis Cain then created 16 Spanish versions of the English forecast image banners."

This work allows the Forecast Offices to use a new Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS) to draw raw weather data directly from the NWS National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) to automatically create Spanish language Point Forecast pages.

Minton added, "There were thousands of hits the first day the Spanish Language links were posted, and we have seen a steady increase since then." Leon Minton provides information technology expertise for the NWS Southern Region by virtue of a University of Oklahoma grant under the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) program.

Rod Heckel has been recognized with a 2005 NOAA Administrator's Award for his pioneering work in the development and implementation of automated Spanish language broadcasts via NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR). The Weather Forecast Office in El Paso was the first in the nation to have an NWR transmitter totally dedicated to Spanish language broadcasts.