An Overview on the Communication of Winter Road Hazards Among NWS Weather Forecast Offices

While advancing forecast accuracy and product development is vitally important, researchers also need to ensure that forecast information is being effectively communicated to end-users. This presentation will focus on the primary findings and themes that resulted from an NWS-wide survey. The end goal of this project is to further communication and forecasting capabilities of winter weather road hazards. Results from this research will be used to add future stakeholder engagement and simulated decision-making environments into WPC’s Winter Weather Experiment (WWE). The NWS-wide survey was fielded during winter 2023-2024 and showed similar findings from past IWT discussion groups. Specifically, this survey highlighted forecaster consensus with regard to who they work with and the general level of communication they hold with their stakeholders. Forecaster responses varied when asked if they could share messages containing strong wording about direct impacts to road or travel conditions, which suggests differing interpretations of NWS directives. Forecasters are also in general agreement that they disseminate probabilistic guidance to their end users and this information is crucial when forecasting winter weather road hazard impacts. However, when messaging probabilistic guidance to stakeholders and the public, forecasters are generally anticipating end-user misunderstanding or interpretation difficulties.