NWS seeks comments on a proposal to simplify and clarify hazard messages

The National Weather Service is conducting a new survey on a proposal to discontinue the use of the "advisory" term and the Special Weather Statement (SPS) and Short Term Forecast (NOW) products and instead use plain language statements to provide information on weather events that are not expected to meet warning thresholds.  The proposed changes are based on survey feedback and social science research, which indicates that people are sometimes confused by the terms the NWS uses for its hazard messages.

Information on the proposals is available in a handout. Details of the proposals, along with examples of the proposed consolidated and reformatted messages, are contained in the Product Description Document (PDD): https://nws.weather.gov/products/PDD/PDD_Proposed_FinalHazSimpProposal_2020.pdf

The survey is available at the following URL https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/publichazsimp through August 21, 2020.

Questions may be directed to hazsimp@noaa.gov