Feliks Banel: Human hands – and ears – help NOAA’s radio robot get place names right
Aug 30, 2024, 10:22 AM | Updated: Sep 27, 2024, 6:20 am
KIRO Newsradio meteorologist Ted Buehner happily displays a gratuitous prop for this edition of All Over The Map - a vintage Radio Shack NOAA Weather Radio. (Feliks Banel/KIRO Newsradio)
(Feliks Banel/KIRO Newsradio)
When the NOAA Weather Radio robot voice pronounces the names of local communities in the Puget Sound area correctly, it’s because human hands and ears are at work “behind the sounds.”
You might remember a big storm a few weekends ago. On Saturday, Aug. 17, the Puget Sound area experienced gusty winds, thunder and lightning, and a lot of rain. It was relatively unusual for mid-August.
Anyone who tuned in and listened that night to NOAA Weather Radio – an automated, 24-hour-a-day service broadcast on a special radio band – heard the NOAA robot voice giving current conditions and the forecast. But, because of that odd August storm, the broadcast also included a series of warnings about heavy precipitation and possible flooding in specific areas.
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The warnings spoken by the NOAA robot included a long list of local communities in the south part of Puget Sound, including many in Pierce County, Thurston County, and Lewis County. Any regular NOAA Weather Radio listener might have noticed many names of communities not regularly mentioned on non-stormy days and nights.
And a few of those names probably didn’t sound quite right to most Western Washington residents.
“NAY-puh-veen” instead of the correct “NA-puh-vine.”
“Tuh-NEE-no” instead of the correct “Tuh-NEYE-no.”
“Elb” instead of the correct “EL-bee.”
It was, for those sitting indoors and glued to their weather radios, as unsettling as the August storm that was raging outside. After all, this is the same talented NOAA robot that routinely pronounces “Puyallup” and “Sequim” as properly as a retired geography teacher.
A phone call to the National Weather Service’s Seattle Forecast Office at Sand Point on Lake Washington helped reveal the secret. Refreshingly, that phone call was answered by an actual human being who listened to the question, and who then quickly summoned forecaster Johnny Burg.
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Burg told KIRO Newsradio that the Seattle Forecast Office has a computer interface on-site for making adjustments to the otherwise automated local weather radio system. As it turns out, helping the NOAA robot “learn” to say place-names correctly is a straightforward and simple process.
“Basically, I would just go into the system and I’d go into the dictionary,” Burg said, explaining how the interface includes a place-name database where he can add custom pronunciation information.
“Then, I would put in an entry and say, ‘Okay, here’s the word “Napavine,”’ and I’d have it spelled out the way it is, how appears in the text,” Burg continued. “And then I would go into another box, and then try to (spell it) phonetically to try to (help the robot voice) pronounce it correctly.”
Burg says it’s been about five years since he’s made any changes or additions to the place-name dictionary for the weather radio system that broadcasts in the Seattle area. He confirmed that the heavy rain and flood warnings issued on Saturday, August 17 are pretty rare, and that many of the communities name-checked by the robot don’t often come up in regular broadcasts.
Having been alerted to this serious mispronunciation issue, how long might it take for Johnny Burg to help the robot more accurately pronounce Napavine, Toledo and Elbe?
“Well, I have it written down right now, so I think that’s what I will probably try to do today,” Burg said, clearly aware of the impactful information he now possessed. “Now, I know ‘Napavine’ and I know ‘Tenino,’” he continued, correctly saying both. “Now ‘Elbe’ – I always wondered if it’s ‘Elb’ or like ‘El-bee.’”
“As you can tell,” Burg said, “I’m not from here originally.”
For anyone who wants to go even deeper into local place-name pronunciation, the go-to resource remains the guide originally produced at Washington State University in the 1960s by the late Hugh Rundell.
Follow the link to download you own PDF copy, and be sure to share with your friends in Napavine, Tenino and Elbe – or Puyallup and Sequim.
You can hear Feliks every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien, read more from him here, and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks here.
