S. 258 — TORNADO Act

This section defines terms used in the Act, including "hazardous weather and water events" (i.e., severe storms such as hurricanes and short-fused thunderstorm events producing large hail, damaging winds, tornadoes, and flash floods; winter storms such as freezing or frozen precipitation or combined effects with strong winds; and other hazards such as extreme heat or cold, wildfire, drought, dense fog, high winds, river flooding, and lakeshore flooding). It further provides that other terms have the meanings given in specified statutes: "historically Black college or university" (i.e., part B institution in section 322 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, 20 U.S.C. 1061); "Indian Tribe" (section 4 of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, 25 U.S.C. 5304); "institution of higher education" (section 101(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965, 20 U.S.C. 1001(a)); "National laboratory" (section 2 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, 42 U.S.C. 15801); and "Under Secretary" (i.e., Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere).

This section directs the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere (NOAA) to maintain and improve the National Weather Service's system for communicating risks of hazardous weather and water events (e.g., tornadoes, hurricanes, floods) to the public, with the goal of informing action to prevent loss of life and property. The section requires NOAA to (1) maintain a hazard risk communication office to simplify terminology, improve communication form/content/methods, develop evaluation metrics, create a periodically updated support plan, and issue best practices for timely/consistent dissemination across platforms; (2) base office recommendations on validated social/behavioral/risk/communication science research that accounts for demographics, vulnerable populations, hazard types, partners' needs, abnormal events, and infrastructure changes; and (3) coordinate with federal partners (e.g., National Laboratories), state/local governments, Indian Tribes, higher education, and media. The section further directs NOAA to (1) establish or maintain a research program to modernize probabilistic hazard information and advance relevant sciences, with coordination to states, tribes, localities, and emergency managers; (2) conduct a pilot program for tornado hazard communication in collaboration with eligible institutions, defined as historically Black colleges or universities in persistent-poverty areas subject to frequent severe weather or institutions near Weather Forecast Offices; (3) create a central repository for related social, behavioral, risk, and economic data; and (4) develop methods (e.g., digital watermarks) to prevent unauthorized tampering with online communications.

This section directs the Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere to submit to Congress, not later than one year after the date of enactment of this Act, a strategic plan for developing and prioritizing the implementation of high-resolution probabilistic forecast guidance for hazardous weather and water events using a next-generation weather forecast and warning framework. The plan must include (1) a discussion of (A) the priorities and needs of vulnerable populations and National Weather Service (NWS) partners and (B) high-performance computing, visualization, and dissemination needs; and (2) a timeline and guidance for implementation of (A) high-resolution numerical weather prediction models, (B) methods to address the needs under paragraph (1)(B), (C) real-time high-resolution probabilistic forecasts, (D) improved observations including through radars, satellites, and uncrewed aerial systems, (E) a flexible framework to communicate clear and simple hazardous weather and water event information to the public, (F) improved coordination among NWS offices such as the National Hurricane Center, River Forecast Centers, and forecast offices to reduce disparate predictions and better communicate overlapping forecasts, and (G) social, behavioral, risk, and communication research to improve the forecaster operational environment and societal information reception and response.

This section directs the Under Secretary, in collaboration with appropriate stakeholders, to evaluate the current tornado rating system—typically the Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale, which assesses tornado intensity based on damage—and determine whether updates are required to ensure ratings accurately reflect severity. If updates are necessary, the section requires the Under Secretary to implement them.

This section requires the Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere to conduct one or more post-storm surveys and assessments following each hazardous weather or water event determined to be of sufficient societal importance. The section directs the Under Secretary to (1) coordinate such surveys with federal, state, and local governments, Indian Tribes, private entities, and institutions of higher education to optimize data collection, sharing, and integration; (2) make survey data publicly available as soon as practicable; and (3) pursue improvements by investigating uncrewed aerial systems for data collection, identifying gaps and updating tactics to enhance data efficiency and reliability, and increasing post-storm community impact studies that survey individual responses, review prior risk evaluation accuracy, evaluate prior mitigation efficacy, and gather survivability statistics. The section further requires the Under Secretary to provide training, resources, and professional counseling to support the emotional and mental health of employees conducting such surveys.

This section revises the tornado warning improvement and extension program—renaming it the VORTEX-USA program and directing NOAA's Under Secretary to maintain it (previously, to establish it)—to require (1) continuation of research on probabilistic tornado forecast guidance technology and incorporation of hazard communication research, and (2) grant awards for research on tornado-related social, behavioral, risk communication, and economic sciences, as well as physical sciences, engineering, and technology related to tornado formation and interactions with the environment (prioritizing minority-serving institutions, i.e., part B institutions, Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribal Colleges or Universities, and others as defined in the Higher Education Act of 1965). The section authorizes appropriations of $11 million to carry out the program for each of FY2025 through 2032, of which at least $2 million each fiscal year is for grants under the new research provision. (The program, administered by NOAA in collaboration with the weather industry and academic partners, aims to reduce tornado-related loss of life and economic damage through improved forecasts, predictions, and warnings, including those beyond one hour in advance and incorporating innovative observations such as phased array radars.)

This section directs the Comptroller General of the United States to submit to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, not later than 540 days after enactment, a report examining the National Weather Service's (NWS) information technology infrastructure for timely public notification of hazardous weather and water event alerts and updates. The report must include (1) an analysis of NWS IT infrastructure, including software and hardware capabilities and limitations such as server and data storage methods, broadband, data management, and data sharing; (2) identification of secondary and tertiary fail-safes for alert distribution; (3) determination of public notification delays and corrective measures that do not add notification time; (4) assessment of collaboration with other federal offices, states, or private entities to reduce delays; and (5) description of actions to identify critical steps in the notification process vulnerable to communication, technologic, or computational failure.

This section eliminates certain National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reporting requirements concerning environmental data and observing systems. Specifically, it (1) strikes subsection (d) of Section 403 of the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 (15 U.S.C. 8543)—which required NOAA to submit its environmental observing systems plan to congressional committees and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy—and makes a technical amendment to subsection (a) of that section; and (2) strikes 15 U.S.C. 1537, which required the Secretary of Commerce to conduct assessments of NOAA environmental data and information systems adequacy not later than 12 months after October 29, 1992, and biennially thereafter, and to submit biennial comprehensive 10-year modernization plans to congressional committees.