What Makes Warnings Work: Optimising Information Governance in HIWeather

Weather warnings are amongst the most valuable services provided by weather services. However, attempts to measure their value repeatedly come up with estimates that fall an order of magnitude below their potential. Traditionally, shortcomings were attributed to forecast accuracy and huge efforts have been put into making severe weather forecasts better, with spectacular results and very real benefits. More recent research has focused on reasons for the lack of response to accurate warnings, including accessibility, language and trust. Other research has shown that major failures have resulted from inappropriate governance associated with a lack of clear policy for warnings. The WMO/WWRP High Impact Weather project (HIWeather) is promoting and facilitating research through the whole warnings chain with the aim of enabling warnings to be more effective builders of resilience, especially in developing countries. In my presentation, I will describe the HIWeather approach to characterising the warning chain, the objective of measuring and attributing value to its components, and the work currently in progress looking at key aspects of the warning process.