Around the weather world in 280 Twitter characters
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Yes, the high is expected to be in the mid-80s Thursday, and no doubt some in the Pittsburgh peanut gallery are grumbling that the crisp, cool of fall hasn’t arrived.
Perhaps no one knows this more than the National Weather Service’s Pittsburgh social media team.
Just in the past couple of days, one or a combo of members from the sevenperson team has directly responded to comments and questions on Wednesday’s tweeted forecast: “I just want my fall weather,” wrote @sbrodskym, who included two sad emoji faces; “When that dewpoint dropping below 60 ????? ” asked @AdventurerJosh, with yes, five question marks; and “Where’s my September weather? I wanna open my windows. ;)” lamented @beth563.
“Beth - a cold front will move through Friday, with a nice weekend in store...highs in the low 70s. You can open your windows, then!” @NWSPittsburgh responded.
Later Wednesday, an updated forecast was tweeted out: “A cold front passage will bring scattered, strong thunderstorms to our area Friday, but it will also usher in cooler temperatures by Saturday, making this weekend picture perfect for any outdoor fall activities!” Pumpkin and leaf emojis punctuated the point.
While the tone might be light, the NWS Pittsburgh office considers social media an integral — and growing — part of disseminating important weather and safety information as well as receiving localized reports.
“We really try to push important messages to help people prepare for disasters in a fun and lighthearted way,” said Myranda Fullerton, a meteorologist at NWS Pittsburgh who assists with social media.
An example of that could be seen last week when the Pittsburgh and Cleveland offices jabbed back and forth on Twitter to hammer home just how colossal Hurricane Florence was — it was the size of two Pennsylvanias put together, but
Ohios. “Cleveland started that,” said Shannon Hefferan, meteorologist and group leader for NWS Pittsburgh. “Since we know them well, we chimed in and showed that we’re all working together. People are watching ‘Cleveland’s doing that, Pittsburgh’s doing that, they’re friends.’ We do talk to each other.”
One of the most popular tweets ever posted by NWS Pittsburgh was a simple one-liner that came after a long string of days with snow in the forecast, just before spring 2018 began.
“One of our guys just tweeted ‘There is no snow in the forecast,’ and that just got retweeted and liked a lot. We’re kind of thinking ‘what are regular Pittsburgh people thinking about and complaining about?’ We’re right there with them,” Ms. Hefferan, a Pittsburgh native, said.
There’s a serious research side to what types of information and graphics NWS posts online, including studying how colorblindness or a language barrier may affect a person’s understanding of the weather forecast.
“Where’s the sweet spot where we’re getting the message across,” Ms. Hefferan said.
Of course, criticism comes with the territory of being a weather forecaster, especially one on social media. Prior to the rise of social media, the NWS mainly communicated with media outlets rather than directly with the public.
Some of the comments under the NWS Pittsburgh’s Sunday Facebook post about anticipated rainfall from Florence remnants read: “It was 1-3 inches a few days ago now its 1.13, how many more time you going to change it before it gets here?” and “Nothing but precipitation for western PA since December of 2017.”
Ms. Hefferan and Ms. Fullerton said they’re used to it, and the social media team uses the comments as teachable moments, a chance to explain to the public why forecasts change and how they made their forecasting decisions.
Negative comments and all, the NWS plans to grow its use of social media.
“We love to get reports, we love to get photos. If there are trees down, or people have rain gauges at home, we love [to get those] reports,” Ms. Fullerton said. “If you see some interesting clouds and you want to know what they are, we’re pretty responsive.”