Presenting Flood Risk Information in a Flash: Initial Public Impressions of the Weather Prediction Center’s Enhanced Rainfall Outlook

Although a relatively new forecast product, the Weather Prediction Center’s (WPC) Enhanced Rainfall Outlook (ERO) has made a splash in hydrological risk communication. Several high profile flooding events, including Hurricanes Harvey and Ida, have seen the ERO take center stage in efforts to communicate significant flood potential on social media and local and national TV networks. Despite the increasing visibility of the product, there is a lack of social science-based study around how forecast recipients interpret the ERO, to the point that the WPC has directly encouraged further social science study of the product. This investigation takes the first step towards identifying the public’s awareness and understanding of the ERO by analyzing survey responses from 1200 US adults about their interpretation of an ERO graphic. Results reveal that a majority of participants do not recognize the ERO from past experience, but most felt confident that they could interpret the product correctly. Participants that felt that they were not confident in their ability to interpret the outlook, or that they were not likely to use the outlook, highlighted that they were unsure on where to find the ERO, believed forecasts like the ERO could be unreliable, and that the ERO was not relevant to their daily lives. Future work can build on these findings by identifying whether the ERO influences risk perceptions and potential behavior changes, as well as what behavior changes individuals may seek to make to mitigate their risk after receiving forecasts for excessive rainfall.