Public Ability to Detect Low-Quality Winter Weather Forecast Information

The public weather information ecosystem is rapidly evolving. Historically, information dissemination was mostly top down, passed through forecasters and broadcast meteorologists in a relatively controlled environment. The emergence and popularization of social media has ushered in a new medium for members of the public to obtain weather forecast information, from both high-quality and low-quality sources. This project evaluates three research questions: i) can members of the public identify low-quality winter weather forecast information in a social media setting? ii) does the presence of pre-bunk information (i.e., information about how to identify low-quality forecast information) increase the ability of members of the public to identify low-quality information? iii) are there systematic identifiers of low-quality information that members of the public look for? Data comes from the 2023 Winter Weather and Society Survey, an online survey of members of the public from across the US. Initial results and geographic differences will be presented, along with recommendations for mitigating the impact of low-quality forecast information.