National Weather Service briefs partners on forecasts, INWS alerts and GIS tools for incident planning
December 13, 2025 | Alabama Department of Environmental Management , State Agencies, Executive, Alabama
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John from the National Weather Service’s Birmingham office told the commission how weather products support emergency planning and response across Alabama.
"The number one cause of damage in the state of Alabama and actually in the country is the severe thunderstorm," John said, arguing that thunderstorms (with lightning, hail, wind and flooding) create more frequent damage footprints than tornadoes and that layered alerting systems are essential. He described tools that help responders: the point‑forecast pages on weather.gov, INWS areas of interest for alerting, the NWS Chat Slack workspace for two‑way partner communications, and an NWS GIS viewer for mapping hazards.
During Q&A, attendees discussed exporting e‑plan KML location data for Tier 2 facilities and merging those layers with NWS viewer outputs. NWS staff offered to assist offline to help jurisdictions combine facility locations with weather layers during active events.
"The number one cause of damage in the state of Alabama and actually in the country is the severe thunderstorm," John said, arguing that thunderstorms (with lightning, hail, wind and flooding) create more frequent damage footprints than tornadoes and that layered alerting systems are essential. He described tools that help responders: the point‑forecast pages on weather.gov, INWS areas of interest for alerting, the NWS Chat Slack workspace for two‑way partner communications, and an NWS GIS viewer for mapping hazards.
During Q&A, attendees discussed exporting e‑plan KML location data for Tier 2 facilities and merging those layers with NWS viewer outputs. NWS staff offered to assist offline to help jurisdictions combine facility locations with weather layers during active events.
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