NWS Charleston, WV Decision Support Information

The National Weather Service is focused on building a Weather-Ready Nation, which means building community resilience in the face of increasing vulnerability to extreme weather-dependent impacts.

The National Weather Service has always recognized that we have a special mission responsibility for our core partners, including the emergency management community.

This informational webpage outlines a few of the Decision Support Services (DSS) we can provide to assist our core partners in dealing with increasing numbers and kinds of threats.

Emergency Managers within the NWS Charleston, WV County Warning Area can request DSS support by contacting:

Tony Edwards, Warning Coordination Meteorologist
Phone: 304-746-0173 ext 223
Email: Tony.Edwards@noaa.gov

On-Site Decision Support

To inform preparedness, mitigation, response & recovery efforts at the request of emergency management, the National Weather Service can deploy on-site meteorologists to provide critical wind, temperature, relative humidity, precipitation and dispersion forecasts. These incident meteorologists are trained in the National Incident Management System (NIMS), can deploy weather equipment at the incident location, download weather data remotely, and provide critical weather briefings to the response team and at an Emergency Operations Center.

Remote Decision Support

The National Weather Service can provide weather support for incidents & events where public safety is a concern. This information can include online briefings or webinars with the primary purpose of enhancing weather situational awareness, on-demand Hysplit Dispersion Model forecasts for chemical spills, and spot weather forecasts for incidents such as wildfires, HazMat accidents, or missing person searches. These services would compliment the weather forecast information routinely delivered via our website at www.weather.gov/rlx.

Relay of Emergency Information

Civil Emergency Messages notify people when they need to evacuate or take other precautions to protect themselves. The message is broadcast on NOAA All Hazards Weather Radio and the Emergency Alert System, which automatically interrupts local media programming. This message must be requested by Emergency Management and include information such as areas affected, required actions, evacuation routes, shelter locations and how to obtain additional information.

Exercises

Since weather is often such an important variable in real life disasters, the National Weather Service should be a participant in your disaster exercises and simulations! If your scenario involves hazardous weather, we can help you design the exercise to create a realistic weather situation.