NWS pauses language translation for its products ‘until further notice'

Yahoo

10-04-2025

The Brief
The National Weather Service paused any automated language translation services for its products indefinitely.
NWS said the pause was due to a contract lapse.
Experts warned that non-English speakers could potentially miss life-saving warnings about severe weather without the language translation service.
The National Weather Service will no longer be providing language translations for its products.
NWS said it "paused" the translations because its contract with the provider had lapsed, according to NWS spokesperson Michael Musher.
The backstory
Lilt, an artificial intelligence company, began providing translations in late 2023, replacing manual translations that the weather service had said were labor-intensive and not sustainable.
It eventually provided them in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and Samoan.
The contract lapse comes as President Donald Trump's administration is seeking to slash spending in federal agencies, including cuts within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that have led to high employee vacancy rates at NWS offices.
Weather experts warned that non-English speakers living in the U.S. could potentially miss life-saving warnings about severe weather without these translations.
What they're saying
"The value is for the millions of people in the area and around the country that rely on these kind of things, maybe English is not their native language, so when they're getting critical weather information: warnings, watches, advisories....having those translated in their native language truly can be a life or death situation and extremely helpful to have that. So taking that away is really really important," John Homenuk, a meteorologist at NY Metro Weather, told FOX 5 New York.
By the numbers
Nearly 68 million people in the U.S. speak a language other than English at home, including 42 million Spanish speakers, according to 2019 Census data.
Why you should care
Not being able to read urgent weather alerts could be a matter of life or death, said Joseph Trujillo-Falcón, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who has worked with NOAA researching how to translate weather and climate information to the public, including the use of artificial intelligence.
He said translated weather alerts saved lives during a deadly tornado outbreak in Kentucky in 2021. A Spanish-speaking family interviewed afterward said they got a tornado alert on their cellphone in English but ignored it because they didn't understand it, he said. When the same alert came in Spanish, they quickly sought shelter, he said.
"It saved their life," said Trujillo-Falcón.
The Source
Information for this article was taken from a FOX 5 New York newscast and an interview with John Homenuk. The Associated Press also contributed.