The purpose of this session is to investigate how both technology and the specialised skills of communications professionals may be used in warning and monitoring of severe (or otherwise high-impact) weather. New technology and access to new sources of data, along with the extended reach of forecasts through both traditional and ‘new’ media, offer weather organisations significant opportunities for improving their warning services. But a systematic and disciplined approach is required to coordinate our messaging when it matters most.

We invite presentations on the following themes in particular.

• Social media as a means of extending the reach of forecasts and warnings.
• Monitoring of high impact weather and its impacts through social media.
• Advances in web- and smartphone-based warnings
• The role of communications professionals in the ‘messaging’ of high impact weather and incident management.
• Discussion of the way we should communicate the concept of ‘risk’ in forecasts and warnings for the public and other customers.

We also plan to run a workshop for communication professionals involved in weather organisations in association with this session.