As technology develops, weather experts are finding new ways to distribute the latest hurricane and tropical storm updates to the public. Social media plays an important role in keeping everyone informed before, during and after hurricane season.
It’s a system that’s evolved over the past couple of years — into a mixture of automated and manual updates — as social media engagement continues to reach new heights, according to Robbie Berg, the National Hurricane Center’s senior hurricane specialist.
“Way back decades ago, with all text products, just whatever we typed and wrote, that’s all people got,” Berg said. “Now it’s a lot more graphics and graphics are good because you actually can put them on social media.”
In addition to graphics, Berg said users tend to gravitate toward live videos.
“What we found is that people really liked the Facebook lives that we conduct because it gives people a look of what’s actually going on in the center during a storm,” he said.
According to Berg, in these live videos people, like NHC Director Ken Graham, typically walk around the site’s operations, talking to different forecasters about the storms.
“I hope that by them seeing us putting so much effort and sweat into the forecast that they do take it seriously,” Berg said of the audience’s response.
He said it’s good to boil down the information being relayed to the most essential bullet points but added it’s the fascinating content, like storm satellite images and stories on hurricane hunters, that leads social media users to follow the more serious updates.
“Honestly, the tweets that get the most reaction are the kind of really cool, gee-whiz tweets ... I think that’s what generates the interest and gets ... more people following us. Gets them listening to our content,” Berg said.
Berg added a lot of the responses are generated and sent out automatically to inform the public in a fast and efficient manner.
“When we hit the button to send out our products on our system, we already have it linked up to Twitter and the headline that’s in our public advisory gets tweeted out with the link immediately,” Berg said.
But not every question asked on social media can get answered, according to Berg. He said the NHC sees a lot of questions flood the site and since the specialists are busy with other things and no one person is designated to monitoring and responding to social media inquiries, sometimes it can be difficult.
“If we see there’s a very important question that we think would benefit a lot of people to hear the answer to, we do try to respond,” he said.
As vast as social media is, Berg said it’s not the only way the public should stay updated on the latest hurricane news.
“Find your trusted source, whether it’s on TV or radio you listened to or the Hurricane Center website ... Have somebody, it doesn’t matter who, just somebody that you can turn to.”
To find the latest hurricane news, visit clickorlando.com/hurricane or download News 6′s Hurricane Tracker and Pinpoint Weather apps.