Founded on Facebook on August 21, 2015, the Global Weather & EAS Society started in the beginnings as the Weather and EAS Community 2015 (WEC15). After 2015, WEC15 transitioned into the International Weather and EAS Aficionados (IWEA). Finally, IWEA transitioned into the current identity in 2017, the Global Weather & EAS Society. It’s original creation date allows GWES to be known as the second oldest group in the community!

Over the years, GWES expanded far and wide to include nearly 1,000 members worldwide, adding a Discord server, replacing the aging Facebook group, various “divisions”, and building out a staff team comprised of some of the most knowledgeable faces in the community.

In 2019, the Global Weather & EAS Society created the EAS Relay Network (GWES ERN). This was a reboot of the aging, and mostly inactive GWES Weather Network Radio. ERN comprises of over 30 participants, located both in the United States and Canada, relaying civil and weather emergency messages, covering most of the continental United States.

In 2022, the Global Weather & EAS Society released the ERN Podcast. The podcast is exclusively hosted by some of the strongest minds in the EAS community, creating content for the EAS and weather community. Currently on season 2, but also on indefinite hiatus due to production difficulties, the GWES ERN podcast is our outreach into the community to improve wide knowledge of the system, along with bringing the latest news and updates about the community.

In late 2022, GWES announced the changing of the staff, creating a leadership council compared to a “tiered” leadership style.

In the beginning of 2023, GWES got new branding to bring the community into a new era, allowing the group to look more modern.

Within 2023, GWES expanded its operations outside of just Discord and the website. GWES released its Mastodon instance to the community, allowing users a place to chat, without concerns of privacy or losing features behind a paywall like other platforms. Around the same time, GWES partnered with the Iowa Environmental Mesonet to bring the official IEMBot social media accounts to Mastodon.

In 2024, the Global Weather & EAS Society acquired operations of the Nationwide Encoder Relay Program (NERP), breathing new life into internet radio stations within NERP.

“We should be #1 in reputation, not number of members” – Patrick