Developing the “Next-Generation” Winter Weather Experiment Testbed: Integrating Road Hazards

In this talk, we unveil a new project aimed at adding stakeholder engagement and simulated decision-making environments to the WPC’s Winter Weather Experiment (WWE). Our end goal is to lay the necessary groundwork to advance the forecasting capabilities and communication of road hazards through Integrated Warning Team (IWT) discussions, an NWS-wide survey, and WWE testbed focus groups. This presentation will cover the current activities and findings to date. In particular, we will focus on preliminary results from the NWS-wide survey and initial IWT discussion groups. The IWT discussion groups reveal that strong differences exist in how road hazards are diagnosed and communicated by different WFOs. Some offices have vigorous partnerships with their corresponding DOTs that include weather support from private-sector meteorologists and sharing information about unfolding threats and road conditions. Other offices have much less information and, hence, struggle to fully discover/communicate existing and imminent threats. Differences in interpretation of NWS directives also emerge between offices as well as different perceptions of how stakeholders and end users interpret and understand probabilistic guidance.