The National Weather Service has paused language translations of its products because its contract with provider Lilt has lapsed, according to the Associated Press. Experts say the change could put non-English speakers at risk of missing crucial warnings about extreme weather.
Lilt, an artificial intelligence company, began providing translations for the National Weather Service in late 2023, eventually offering them in Spanish, Chinese, French, Samoan and Vietnamese.
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.
Contractors should be aware if their crews rely on translation of weather alert texts.
Joseph Trujillo-Falcón, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said inability to read urgent weather alerts could be a matter of life or death. He said translated weather alerts saved lives during a deadly tornado outbreak in Kentucky in 2021 when a Spanish-speaking family said they got a tornado alert on their cellphone in English but ignored it because they did not understand it; they quickly sought shelter when the same alert came in Spanish.
