National Weather Service & St. Louis County Work Closely Together

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Minn. — The National Weather Service (NWS) and St. Louis County work hand-in-hand together to give better response to severe weather events.

The two agencies have a long history of working together. Last year, the NWS Duluth office received the second highest number of weather support requests for Search and Rescue Operations out of any NWS office in the U.S.

According to Josh Brinkman, the emergency management coordinator for St. Louis County, the strong partnership allows for information to flow in both direction between the two agencies.

In preparation of severe weather, the NWS will notify the county’s 9-1-1 center in advanced for areas that will be affected. The 9-1-1 center will then contact local agencies so that they can prepare themselves to respond to possible severe weather threats that can displace or disrupt people’s daily lives.

Likewise, the county also will confirm the severity of weather events. Like in June of last year, when the rescue squad was able to confirm the touch-down of a tornado in Cotton to the NWS to alert people nearby.

“It’s a great partnership that we have with St. Louis County and especially the St. Louis County rescue squad. It’s a real comfort to know that if someone calls 911, they’re in and they’re in trouble, they’re in the wilderness, that we’re giving them the weather support that helps them,” said Joe Moore, the warning coordination meteorologist at the Duluth NWS office.

“Not just for the first responders to be safe while they’re out searching the woods, but we’re actually giving them sophisticated weather information to help with drone operations, to help with the sweep width of the dogs when they’re for their animals, to help narrow down or widen the area that they can search based on the previous weather conditions,” said Moore.

Recently, a meteorologist from the NWS Duluth has been embedded into the county’s Emergency Operations Center. This allows for a more proactive response to weather events at no additional cost.

Throughout this past week, St. Louis County and the NWS have also partnered to educate the community more on severe weather awareness.