nsj's blog

weather and society workshop recap

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my plans to attend the Weather and Society - Integrated Studies workshop in Boulder, Colorado.  I've been back for a couple of weeks, and I've had a chance to begin processing everything I learned while I was there.  In a nutshell, it was one of those experiences that changes the way I look at the world and my place in it.  (That probably explains at least part of why it's taken two weeks to be able to put thoughts in writing!)

A few folks have asked me what "WAS*IS" is all about.  A fellow "WAS*ISer", Deke Arndt, summarized it quite nicely when he wrote:

Imagine this: You are planning your day, dressing your kids, or worried about the weather and you turn on your radio to get a forecast. And the forecast is in German! Even if the forecast is 100% accurate, a "perfect" forecast, does it help you choose the right clothes or precautions? For a few million American citizens this - forecasts in a non-native language - is a reality.

Anyone who's traveled in a foreign country knows this can be an issue, but it's even bad when we're supposedly speaking the same language. Meteorologists have been known to throw out a good bit of jargon during our segments, from somewhat benign phrases like "cold front" and "high pressure" to critically important ones like "severe thunderstorm watch" and "tornado warning." When the chips are down, does everyone know what those mean?

Here's another example I like to use: Ever heard a meteorologist say there was a "30 percent chance of rain?"  What does that mean?  My running joke is that if you get six meteorologists in a room and ask them that question, you'll get at least seven different answers.  More importantly, perhaps -- what do the folks at home think it means?

Deke continues:

Now imagine this: You have a piece of information or advice that will save your friend's life. All she needs to do is listen to you and wait 30 minutes before she runs an errand. What if you can't get in touch with her? What if she ignores you? What if someone else gives her conflicting advice? What would it be like to watch her drive right into peril to run an errand that wasn't worth her life?

This example hits home for me, as a meteorologist responsible for delivering severe weather updates.  We're all very interested in how to make those warnings -- and how we handle them on TV -- more effective.  How can we tell people what we think they need to know in a fast-changing situation in the way that's mostly likely to get them to take action to save their lives?

While communication -- with each other and with the general public -- was a big topic, it was far from the only issue on the table:

• We toured part of Ft. Collins, Colorado, a city that flooded badly during a thunderstorm in 1997.  They have one of the more aggressive flood plain management programs you'll find, and it paid off during that flood.  One estimate suggested those changes saved dozens of lives.  However, those changes were unpopular in some quarters at the time, and in some cases, still are.
• Keeping with the flooding theme, we also toured the site of the Big Thompson Canyon flood of 1976.  More than 100 people were killed when an upstream thunderstorm caused the Big Thompson river to swell and sweep homes and other buildings -- including a power plant! -- away.
• We discussed weather forecast uncertatinty -- a lot and from a number of different angles.  Anyone who's relied on a weather forecast knows that there is some uncertainty involved.  We don't fully understand the atmosphere, and that lack of complete knowledge results in forecasts that cannot be completely certain.  Plus, that level of certainty changes from day to day.  So, how can we express our uncertainty in a way that is meaningful?  Does the general public even want that kind of information?
• We took the Super Tuesday tornado outbreak as something of a case study in learning how people get weather warnings and what sorts of factors contribute to whether people take action.  It's not just as simple as "hear the warning and take action" -- far from it, in fact.  Most folks want confirmation of a warning -- could be the TV crawl and dark skies outside, or a message on the radio backed with a phone call from a loved one -- before they'll take action.  Included in that calculation is the idea of a person's perception of personal risk, which is even tougher to nail down.
• We tackled the issue of populations in our society who are more vulnerable to severe weather than others.  We all know Hurricane Katrina was a huge disaster, but if you compare the folks affected compared to the total population and break those numbers down by race, socioeconomic status, gender, age, and other means, it becomes clear that some groups were hit much, much harder than others.  The storm goes where the storm goes -- so why were these groups affected so disproportionately?
• Another session centered around engaging end users in the weather process.  Those of us in TV have been doing this for a long time, actually -- researching viewers to determine likes, dislikes, preferences, needs, and so on -- but it's a fairly new concept to much of the "weather enterprise", including the National Weather Service, to some degee.

All of these issues raise a bunch of great questions, but questions only get us so far.  So, we spent a good bit of time going over basic social science research methods -- in other words, things we can use to try and actually answer some of those questions.

Beyond the questions, though, I think we all left with an even deeper appreciation of all the ways weather and society interact.  It goes beyond simply whether I need an umbrella or a jacket when I head out tonight, touching issues from public policy to communication and lots of other topics along the way.  Personally, I find myself thinking a lot more about the societal impacts of different things, including, of course, the weather.  I knew the workshop had an impact when, while sitting in the Denver airport waiting on my (delayed) flight back home, I pondered the societal impact of a weather delay at an airport four states away.  (Judging from the number of folks waiting on planes through airports in that state, it could have been significant!)

In the coming weeks and months, I hope you'll see some impact from the workshop.  There were a lot of lessons that could impact a lot of what we do weatherwise at WRAL.  One new offering related to all of these discussions is already in the works, and I hope you will find it useful when we release it in the coming weeks.  Other changes will be slower in coming as we work through the lessons learned and develop new ways (and improve old ways!) to tell you about the weather and how it will impact us and society at large.

Filed under: Weather