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<\/a>Trujillo Falc\u00f3n\u2019s fear of thunderstorms and the needs of his community encouraged his path into meteorology, particularly bilingual risk and crisis communication.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt my community wasn\u2019t as prepared as others and communication was part of the issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Trujillo Falc\u00f3n wanted to be a broadcast meteorologist. However, during an internship, he realized very quickly that, in order to improve weather outreach to Spanish-speaking communities, translations had to improve. Today he researches how Spanish-speaking communities receive, respond, and act to certain messages and climate hazards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized there were some words that couldn\u2019t be translated equally from English to Spanish,\u201d said Trujillo Falc\u00f3n. \u201cWe only had so many resources. I did a 180 during my undergraduate degree and changed my focus. I realized there is a big community need, but there\u2019s not a big resource for proper translations and research. I said, if I was in broadcast [meteorology] right now, I would be burned out and frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lost in translation<\/h3>\n
Trujillo Falc\u00f3n left the world of broadcasting to begin severe weather and communication research at the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO)<\/a> with the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and the NOAA National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center (SPC)<\/a>. Partnering with three industry giants allowed Trujillo Falc\u00f3n to access the resources needed to help his community.<\/p>\n Fast forward to today. Trujillo Falc\u00f3n has recommended a new SPC risk communication scale model based on his research with SPC forecasters and research with language experts.<\/p>\n \u201cDepending on where you\u2019re from, our Spanish can vary slightly and our language is beautiful and diverse. However, when it comes to the severe weather community, we want something all can understand,\u201d he said. \u201cThis has blossomed into studies and insights into this community that we\u2019ve never had before. We\u2019re advocating beyond unifying translations and proposing an infrastructure to ensure these efforts strive.\u201d<\/p>\n Trujillo Falc\u00f3n says creating words that are easily understandable to all Spanish speakers is the first step. The next step is to better understand factors that affect how Hispanic and Latinx communities perceive, ingest, and respond to weather information and the enterprise.<\/p>\n \u201cLatin American countries don\u2019t often have National Weather Service services like those in the United States,\u201d said Trujillo Falc\u00f3n. \u201cMany in those areas don\u2019t have access to meteorologists. I feel our next steps are figuring out how one\u2019s heritage, or aspects of culture that are inherited from ancestral origin, impacts how they look at hazards.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Understanding the community<\/h3>\n