CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — When it comes to the weather in your neighborhood, our team at KRIS 6 and Telemundo Corpus Christi is proud to have a team of bilingual meteorologists to provide these updates— in English or 'en español'. We also work closely with the National Weather Service here in Corpus Christi (NWS Corpus Christi), and they, too, have a team of bilingual meteorologists who are using that ability to further the agency's mission.
"Here in Texas the second most spoken language is Spanish but there are other areas that you know those demographics are a little bit different and the weather service has been evolving to be able to serve those communities," said Alina Nieves, a meteorologist at NWS Corpus Christi.
The National Weather Service serves communities across all 50 states and the territories of Guam and Puerto Rico. Millions of Americans trust in these weather forecast offices to keep them ahead of the storm. "And one of the ways we build that trust is by disseminating that information in whatever way is best understood," said Angel Enriquez, a meteorologist at NWS Corpus Christi.
The ability to communicate life-saving information in languages other than English extends beyond serving the public. American meteorologists also collaborate with meteorologists in other countries during international weather events. "To basically speak in the name of the National Hurricane Center with actual foreign entities, which is something that we don't get to do too often in this agency, so that was very useful. Our goal is to protect lives and property," said Nick Carr, a meteorologist at NWS Corpus Christi.
The translation process for weather alerts has evolved significantly. Initially, the NWS relied on volunteers to translate critical weather information into multiple languages.
"Growing up with family that mainly spoke Spanish. You kind of had to learn at a young age to be able to communicate with 'los abuelos y las abuelas'," said Juan Carlos Peña, Jr., a meteorologist at NWS Corpus Christi.
In 2023, artificial intelligence translation technology was introduced to help manage the workload, though there was a brief pause in April 2025. NWS Corpus Christi remains unique with four Spanish-speaking meteorologists, comprising of 25 percent of the office's staff. This statistic makes it one of only 13 National Weather Service offices nationwide with bilingual meteorologists capable of translating alerts.
While speaking multiple languages presents challenges for meteorologists who must master technical weather terminology in different languages, these 'hispanohablante' scientists say the learning curve is worth the ability to potentially save lives across language barriers.
Check out their program at weather.gov/crp .
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