Inaugural Southern Wisconsin Integrated Warning Team Workshops Held

Inaugural Southern Wisconsin Integrated Warning Team (IWT) Workshops Held

Madison Integrated Warning Team Workshop

Milwaukee Integrated Warning Team Workshop

This past week, the National Weather Service in Milwaukee participated in the inaugural workshops for what is being called the Southern Wisconsin Integrated Warning Team. Two sub-workshops were held with partners in Madison and Milwaukee. The goal of the team is to work together to find ways that we can do more to better serve the public by protecting life and property threatened by hazardous weather. Do we know why people respond or don't to hazardous weather forecasts and warnings? Who responds and who doesn't? How do they respond? Are our messages uniform? Are we providing our information in a format people can understand, want and can use? These are all questions and discussions that came up in the workshop. The list of partners that were involved in the workshop includes:

NWS Meteorologists
Television Meteorologists
Private Weather Service Meteorologists
Emergency Management Directors (City, County, Regional, and State)
School District Administrators
Wisconsin Department of Transportation
City of Milwaukee/Madison Government Snow Removal Teams
Wisconsin State Patrol
Wisconsin National Guard
General Mitchell International Airport Operations/Emergency Management
Health Care Emergency Services
Wisconsin Sea Grant Social Scientist
Universities

While it has been a while since there has been a major disaster here in southern Wisconsin, we are all committed to keeping the citizens of southern Wisconsin safe from when (not if) this next weather disaster occurs.