The NWS like many emergency alert systems has numerous methods for broadcasting alerts. The goal is to ensure that as many people as possible receive those aler

The NWS like many emergency alert systems has numerous methods for broadcasting alerts. The goal is to ensure that as many people as possible receive those alerts. There are people who use twitter but don't have their radios set to the various NWS radio services, frequently people don't even listen to the radio at all anymore. Similarly most people don't use an rss reader any more so their RSS feeds don't reach those people, and even the people who do use them don't check rss feeds as frequently as social media. All you need for a twitter feed to be valuable is some number of people who use twitter, but don't listen to the radio, don't regularly check the NWS rss feed, don't have hardware to receive the wireless alert system signals, etc. If there is such a group of twitter users then there's a group of people who can now receive alerts that would not otherwise be available.