Q: Who are you guys anyways?
A: What you see on Twitter as @TravisCOSW is a VOST of the Austin/San Antonio National Weather Service office located in New Braunfels.
Q: What’s a VOST?
A: A VOST is a Virtual Operations Support Team. VOSTs assist larger organizations via social media platforms in helping to collect as well as push out critical information during critical moments (i.e., severe weather).
Q: What do you guys do?
A: We post forecasts at least twice a day (more if the weather changes) at about 7 am and 4 pm. These forecasts are from the NWS (but may be augmented by some of our own thoughts) and we usually include the graphics they issue with them. We also alert persons in Travis County about possible severe weather events in advance.
During times of watches and/or warnings, we issue real time information to alert Travis County folks about severe weather. We will often attempt to break it down even to neighborhood level. We also collect information online, evaluate it for accuracy, and then relay it to the NWS office. That assists NWS in their work to confirm severe weather warning criteria. In some ways, we are like the social media version of ham radio.
Q: What hours do you cover?
A: We are active 24 hours, 7 days a week on @TravisCOSW. Our goal is to never miss a storm and to keep Travis County residents current on any and all weather threats.
Q: Are you meteorologists?
A: No, we are not. But all three of us are trained advanced SKYWARN spotters and we receive training from the NWS several times a year on subject matter like radar interpretation, severe weather spotting, etc. We are also a NOAA-certified Weather-Ready Nation AmbassadorTM and we work towards educating persons in Travis County about how to be prepared for all kinds of weather.
Q: What is #eWXspotter?
A: That is the hashtag originated by our local NWS office to assist them in helping collect severe weather reports online. We promote the use of that hashtag during severe weather events and help educate followers on when to use it to report severe weather and when it is not necessary. The NWS office has a nice webpage about this hashtag at this location: https://www.weather.gov/ewx/vost
