National Weather Service meteorologist speaks on preparing for a busy hurricane season

Caption

U.S. National Weather Service's office is in Peachtree City, Ga., southwest of Atlanta.

Credit: U.S. National Weather Service Peachtree City Georgia on Facebook

NOAA forecasters say 2025 could bring an above-average hurricane season. GPB’s Pamela Kirkland spoke with David Nadler of the National Weather Service about how Georgia prepares for tropical threats, even far from the coast. Nadler also discussed lessons from Hurricane Helene and what tools forecasters rely on to track storms.

TRANSCRIPT:

Pamela Kirkland: This week is Hurricane Preparedness Week here at GPB. NOAA forecasters are predicting an above-average hurricane season, which means it's a good time to talk about how we can all be ready when severe weather strikes. Joining me now is David Nadler. He's member of the Storm Ready Advisory Board and the Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service. David, thank you for joining me.

David Nadler: Of course. Good morning. Thanks for having me.

Pamela Kirkland: Your office at the National Weather Service is focused on forecasting. How do you decide which storms you're going to follow closely versus other areas of interest?

David Nadler: Well, our office covers specifically North and Central Georgia, 96 out of the 159 counties. We don't have any coastal areas. We'll cover more of the counties that are closer to the coast. So that said, any potential threats or impacts to the state will certainly start ramping our level of awareness and messaging, forecasting to our partners, which emergency managers, public safety officials, all the decision-makers across those 96 counties. And then, of course, it trickles to the public as well. The National Hurricane Center, which is a national center in Miami, they're primarily doing the forecast on the tropical systems, any tropical systems. So we take a lot of their — we work closely with them and take a lot of their information and just relay it to more of a state or local level perspective for impacts to the public.

Pamela Kirkland: And to that point, as far as monitoring the coast versus kind of the inner part of Georgia, Hurricane Helene was one storm last year that we saw that came up through Middle, Central Georgia. So as far is coordinating with the National Hurricane Center, I'm sure National Weather Service was also very active in getting those alerts out, too, to say, "Hey, there's a hurricane coming, but it's not coming the usual way that you would think."

David Nadler: Yeah, Helene was very unique in the sense of how powerful it was, but also how fast it was moving. It came up and it made landfall near the Panhandle of Florida, but it was so intense and it was moving so quickly that it was able to maintain significant strength even while inland, which caused a lot of the wind damage, a really pretty broad swath of significant damage due to the winds on top of the heavy rainfall that we had, and even tornadoes on the east side of the center of the storm that affected parts of like Eastern Georgia and on — on to South Carolina as well. So yeah, we were — we were in lockstep with the hurricane center and really trying to emphasize the potential significance of that event and potential damage that it would — it was going to do ahead of time.

Pamela Kirkland: And you touched on this a little bit earlier, but how does the National Weather Service go about getting this information out? Where's the best place for people to look for some of these alerts coming from you all?

David Nadler: Well, you know, our media partners are very important, such as yourselves and on television and getting this information out because the information that the National Hurricane Center releases every three to six hours for a particular event like Helene, for instance, or any tropical system, it's public information. So once they put out their forecast, it's viral. It goes out everywhere. So, you know, people — if people have apps, you know, weather apps tied in with like local media, they'll get a lot of information that way. A lot of people have their own, like, hurricane tracking, you know, apps that they can monitor that information. But just going to, you now, making sure you're kind of tied in, in some way with a specific county that you might live in, because they'll be pushing out the, a lot the same information that we're sharing is a good way. Or just going straight to our local national weather service web page to get that information as well. So, there's a variety of sources, but they all should be pretty much putting out the same information with respect to tropical systems.

Pamela Kirkland: Yeah, probably a situation where it's better to have more information than less information. As a meteorologist, how do you predict things about storms like direction, intensity, just tracking where is going to be most impacted.

David Nadler: Well, there's a couple of things there. I mean, we use real-time observations from, I'm sure you might be familiar with like the Hurricane Hunters or when the Air Force and NOAA send in these specialized — these special airplanes to measure, the data actually within the system to get a feel for how strong it might be or if it's strengthening or weakening. That's a big thing: just the real-time observations. The other thing would be just satellite data. Of course we can see, you know, we have this incredible satellite network of satellites that we can tap into and see the, you know, how the system might be strengthening or weakening, expanding, where it's moving, of course, you know direction and course. Like, you know, that's very important: how fast it's moving. So yeah, just a just a combination of the remote sensing tools that we have with satellite — and radar, if it's close to a radar like San Juan. Puerto Rico has a radar, so sometimes we could see what it looks like offshore. And then, of course, the actual data from the hurricane aircraft or the hurricane hunters that actually fly through the systems several times a day.

Pamela Kirkland: Lastly, earlier this year, the National Weather Service lost hundreds of employees to federal cuts, though there is talk of rehiring. Have you felt any impact on your office's ability to track storms? And just bottom line, can people still rely on the National Weather Service during this busy season?

David Nadler: Yeah, 100%. We've had no notable impacts on our staffing that would affect operation or operational support. We're actually, yeah, the Weather Service is in the process of hiring almost 10% of its workforce in the next six months or so. Those jobs are getting out there right now as we speak. They're just kind of staggered a little bit. So yeah. But we're working well and operating well. We have a great core. And we've always been down like maybe one or two or three people here or there throughout the years. So it's not — um, it's, we're not unaccustomed to, you know, being down a few people. It does, does not affect our day-to-day operations, uh, um. And even when we have higher-impact weather and we staff up, you know, we know, uh we have people that were used to working, you know, around the clock and, and staggering shifts and stuff like that, uh, to meet the needs. So yeah, we just keep doing that and there's been no issues here at all.

Pamela Kirkland: Keep doing what you're doing. We check you guys often to see what we need to be keeping an eye on.

David Nadler: Thank you.

Pamela Kirkland: That's David Nadler, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service and a member of the Storm Ready Advisory Board. As part of Hurricane Preparedness Week, you can find more resources and tips on our website over at gpb.org.