Improving Visual Communication of Weather Forecasts with Rhetoric

Abstract

Abstract Communicating weather-related hazards to the public can be a challenge for meteorologists, particularly given the nature of confidence levels in forecasting science. Despite these challenges, communicating high-impact weather remains extremely important because it has implications for the safety, health, and resilience of impacted communities. Because the dynamics of this issue are complex, solutions to weather hazard communication benefit from interdisciplinary solutions and multiple types of expertise. Our work demonstrates how rhetoric, a foundational communication discipline, can be applied to improving weather forecast communication. Applying a rhetorical framework allows the identification of communication strategies that not only invite public involvement but encourage users to act as conduits for weather information distribution. As a result, trust can be developed between the National Weather Service (NWS) and public audiences. The initial results support the hypothesis that effective public communication from NWS messaging can be improved by incorporating the concept of “commonplaces,” which are the expressions of beliefs, values, and norms that construct community attitudes toward weather or natural hazard forecasts, into visual communication techniques such as NWS Weather Stories.