NWS has halted its automated translation services, which will likely impact the accessibility of weather alerts for non-English speakers locally.

A contract lapse has paused automated translations of emergency weather alerts, affecting more than 68 million non-English speakers in the U.S. The National Weather Service (NWS) has paused language translation services of its products for non-English speakers living in the U.

The contract for artificial intelligence modeling used to send emergency alerts in different languages is among the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) contracts that lapsed this week.