A Tailored IDSS Approach: How NWS Meteorologists Localize and Personalize Hazard-Specific Messaging for Core Partners

Over the past few decades, the National Weather Service (NWS) has continued to improve impact-based decision support services (IDSS) efforts to strengthen communication with core partners. One proposed way to improve IDSS efforts is to provide NWS meteorologists with vulnerability data so they can better communicate who, what, and where is most at risk to weather hazards. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also seeks to understand how NWS meteorologists “personalize” and “localize” information regarding hazardous weather impacts to their core partners, including the communication of vulnerability data. This study addresses how a new spatially hazard-specific vulnerability tool called the Brief Vulnerability Overview Tool (BVOT) may impact how NWS meteorologists tailor messaging to their core partners. The main objective of this study was to document and analyze the current and resulting state of a Weather Forecast Office’s (WFOs) personalization and localization of hazard-specific, tailored messaging to core partners, particularly emergency managers (EMs), before a BVOT is incorporated into WFO operations. This study addressed two research questions: “How does an NWS meteorologist communicate/tailor hazard information to their core partners?” and “How does an NWS meteorologist determine who or what is vulnerable to certain/specific weather hazards?” Study methods included interviewing meteorologists from the NWS Las Vegas, NWS Norman, and NWS Medford offices, which are all BVOT test offices. The interviews focused on each meteorologist’s background in the weather service, their WFO and County Warning Area (CWA), communication and relationships with core partners, vulnerabilities in their CWA, and their initial ideas about how BVOT could be used in their WFO. Interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The data analysis approach used in this study was a thematic analysis. Ongoing analysis has shown that themes may be clustered by WFO. Communication styles and conceptualizations of local vulnerabilities may vary due to differences in geographic regions such as experiencing different hazardous weather events and following different NWS regional protocols.