(March 6, 2012) - The National Weather Service forecast office in Fort Worth hosted an integrated warning team workshop at the North Texas Council of Governments building in Arlington, Texas February 29. Several hundred attendees from the media and emergency management community were on hand to talk about severe weather warnings, decision support services and media coverage.

"The workshop was part of an initiative designed to disseminate a unified warning message during severe weather events," said Fort Worth Meteorologist-in-Charge Bill Bunting. "The idea was to get the emergency managers, print and broadcast media and the National Weather Service together in one room for an open, free-wheeling discussion on ways to improve communications between the groups." The event fostered a lot of spirited discussion focused on a range of subtopics including:

• When and why local governments decide to sound outdoor sirens
• Why some weather events get wall-to-wall media coverage while others do not
• How does the National Weather Service provide information to its partners
• What works well and what can be improved
• How warning are received and perceived by the public
• The expanding role of social media in warning dissemination

Dr. Joe Trainor, PhD, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware and disaster expert was the featured speaker. He is noted for his extensive research in international aspects of disasters, warning and protective actions, human and behavioral response and muti-organizational disaster response networks.

He also served as a National Weather Service assessment team member for the historic April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak; and, as a member of the organizing committee for the Weather Ready Nation.

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