Communicating hurricane forecasts and weather forecast uncertainty to the public

Rebecca E. Morss
ISSE/SERE & MMM/ESSL
NCAR

Gaps often exist between forecast information generated in the atmospheric science community and that received and used by decision makers. Improving forecast communication can help reduce these gaps, enhancing societal benefit in situations ranging from everyday weather forecasting to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. This talk will discuss research to help improve forecast communication by investigating of how members of the public perceive, interpret, and use different types of weather forecasts. Findings from two studies will be discussed. The first study, a researcher-student collaboration following 2005's Hurricane Rita, uses results from in-person interviews to examine Texas Gulf Coast residents' hurricane evacuation decisions and their use and perceptions of hurricane forecasts. In the second study, results from a nationwide survey are used to examine the public's perspectives on everyday weather forecast uncertainty and uncertainty information. As the findings illustrate, to support the meteorological community in providing more usable information, further empirical interdisciplinary research is needed to build understanding of how non-meteorologists perceive meteorological information, interpret it, and use it in decisions. Several important areas for this future research will also be discussed.

Wednesday December 19th 2007 at 11 am.
Foothills Laboratory, Building 2, Room 1022 (Auditorium)
Tea and coffee served before the seminar