Communicating high impact weather: Improving warnings and decision making processes

Abstract

Around the world, high impact weather events continue to represent a serious threat to lives and livelihoods. Effective forecast and warning systems can play an important role in reducing the harm caused by these events. However, in order for continuing improvements in the science of weather forecasting to support disaster risk reduction, forecast information must be communicated in a way that is accessible, understandable and provides a useful input into decision making processes. In keeping with this, the papers featured within this special issue focus on: 1) the move towards providing impact based weather warnings to better support decision making processes; 2) trust and its relationship with forecast uncertainty; 3) tailoring forecasts and warnings to meet the decision needs of different user groups; 4) the emerging role of social media in the dissemination and verification of weather warnings; and 5) the wider behavioural, social, cultural and political context in which weather warnings and forecast information are used in decision making. Together they highlight both the challenges of communicating about high impact weather in different contexts, and the potential ways to address them.