Joseph Trujillo is a MA student with the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma and a Graduate Research Assistant with the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies and the National Severe Storms Laboratory. Prior to graduate school, Joseph wanted to pursue a career in bilingual broadcast meteorology; however, he quickly noticed that communication methods and dissemination in Spanish needed additional work. Since starting graduate school, he is working to raise awareness of weather and climate translations in Spanish and collaborate with the National Weather Service.

With KPHI-TV, Joseph hopes to focus on the communication of rapidly updating warning and probabilistic information in Spanish. In addition, he hopes to analyze how probabilistic hazard information will influence the way social media coverage is disseminated in the future.

KPHI-TV researchers were excited to participate in the Threats in Motion workshop held in Norman, OK this August.  Threats in Motion is a proposed change to National Weather Service tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings.  This concept would allow warning polygons to update every minute and move forward in time spatially.  This potential change represents a bridge to probabilistic information in the future under a FACETs paradigm, and is a significant change to the current warning system.  Other industry representatives included those from The Weather Company, Baron, Midland Weather Radio and NBC Universal.   The workshop also included stakeholders from other NOAA laboratories and NWS entities, as well as the emergency management community.  Threats in Motions concepts will be tested (in addition to probabilistic hazard information) with broadcast meteorologists during this October’s Hazardous Weather Testbed.