Ascertaining Global Best Practice for Communicating about High Impact Weather: Activities of the WMO High Impact Weather Programme Communication Task Team

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is facilitating a global 10-year High Impact Weather (HIWeather) research programme, which aims to “promote cooperative international research to achieve a dramatic increase in resilience to high impact weather". Within this programme, there are five Task Teams focussing on the following aspects: Predictability and Processes; Multi-scale Forecasting of Weather-related Hazards; Impacts, Vulnerability and Risk; User-Oriented Evaluation; and Communication. The Communication Task Team is building capacity in communicating high impact weather information. This is being achieved by bringing together a range of international experts including stakeholders from weather services, the emergency management sector, social scientists and other key practitioners and researchers. We are conducting global research projects and reviews, and applying new knowledge and developments in relation to factors such as types of warnings; the content, language, format, and dissemination of messages (including social media); public awareness and trust; the influence of risk perceptions on responding; and communicating uncertainty. We aim to determine best practice in executing effective risk or impact based warnings in an end to end warning system context, so that communities may better understand and respond to the risk from hazards. We will outline the HIWeather programme and the role and activities (research projects) of the Communication Task Team. We will invite feedback on the activities and encourage the growth and development of the HIWeather network.