The Evolving Weather Service: Building Resilient Communities through Partner Relationships and Decision Support

1. INTRODUCTION

Social scientists are prolific in their recommendations on how to "better warn" about extreme events like tornadoes. However, social scientists rarely work in partnership with operational forecasters, begging the question of how applicable their recommendations are to the “real world” in which forecasters operate. This study, part of the NOAA VORTEX-SE program, examines how NWS forecasters build relationships with their key partners, through decision support. Findings reveal successful relationship building practices, common obstacles, and recommendations for how the NWS can better support forecasters.

2. METHOD

We conducted 13 telephone interviews with NWS forecasters in fall 2017 and completed rapid ethnographic field research at three Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) in the Southeast U.S. in spring 2018. We collected the following data in the field: 32 on-the-spot interviews; 28 fieldnotes from: 3 office tours, 1 community meeting, 1 spotter talk, 2 tornado damage assessments, and 1 school group tour; 307 photographs; 58 area forecast discussions; 19 public information statements; 15 NWS chat logs; and 1,151 social media posts. During data collection, EF1 and EF2 tornadoes occurred.

3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS & RESULTS

RQ1: How do WFOs build relationships with their key partners, including through decision support?

Forecasters build relationships with diverse partners, including federal agencies, schools, first responders, emergency managers, hospitals, local businesses, the media, weather enthusiasts, and the general public. To build these relationships, forecasters employ three important strategies: (1) establishing personal connections, (2) maintaining constant, proactive communication, and (3) gaining localized knowledge. For example, forecasters shared:

Personal connections: “I try to make people feel special. I learn as much about them as possible. I stalk them. Do they have kids and family? Can I talk about an event that we both worked? Once I find something we have in common, it’s game over and then I build that layer of trust.”

Constant, proactive communication: “Not just burying our heads in our computers and sending up a forecast every day like we used to. We're taking the time now to do a weekly briefing, so they're more up to date with what we're thinking.”

Localized knowledge: “For me personally, getting out and meeting the people, seeing the area, being able to go to a county and actually seeing, all right, this is what the county's like, these are the population centers, or these are the flash areas part of the county, as far as flooding. Just being able to go out, meeting the partners, seeing the area, seeing what their needs are, I think helps a lot.”

Forecasters also spend as much “face time” as possible with their partners, especially during quiet times. These interactions include (1) evenings at the weather service, (2) online and in-person spotter trainings, (3) courses for current and aspiring emergency managers, (4) research projects with meteorology students, (5) adopt-a-county and broadcast channel programs, and (6) workshops. The importance of face time was summarized as follows by one participant:

Face time: “If one of our forecasters is 100% accurate with every forecast that they've ever put out, one of our partners may not trust them as much as they would somebody that they're actually talking with face-to-face. Even if I'm wrong, and the other person's right, they may trust me more because they know who I am, and they've gotten the information from us in the past.”

Somewhat counterintuitively, encouraging competition is a strategy some forecasters employ to build relationships with the media.

Competition: “When we do the media workshops, when you say, ‘Oh, well so-and-so from this channel is coming.’ Then, they're like, ‘Oh, well, we have to go.’”

In terms of building relationships with the general public and weather enthusiasts, forecasters primarily rely on WFO’s official and their own personal social media. Participants shared best practices and lessons learned in effectively using social media and researchers assessed how these best practices play out in the WFO’s social media feeds.

Finally, forecasters assessed the training and tools that the NWS provides to support relationship building, and offered suggestions for improvement. They also discussed in-house protocols that facilitate relationship building through decision support services. The research team assessed how forecasters build relationships with key decision support products, including NWS chat logs and briefing slides/phone calls.

RQ2: What challenges do WFOs experience when providing decision support?

One aspect of building strong relationships with partners is producing a reliable forecast. Some forecasters expressed tension with providing decision support and a reliable forecast.

Reliability: “We're putting the cart before the horse on some of this decision support stuff because we're being asked to paint this pretty picture, not necessarily an accurate picture with our forecast.”

Some strategies WFOs employ to combat this tension include: (1) providing trainings, (2) hiring forecasters with strong communication skills, and (3) experimenting with staffing models. Forecasters also discussed how to be “efficient” with their limited time and resources. For example:

Efficiency: “We're part of a Beta test for live streaming video. I think that's a necessary tool in the toolbox that all offices should be able to have. What that allows us to do is to do a quick video update, and our DSS partners can use that to make their decisions, or the general public can use it just to be informed. So again, it's an efficiency doing one thing that reaches many audiences.”

Another tension is that decision support is not the same as decision-making. For example:

Decision-making: “I hate it when school districts are like, ‘Another severe weather in the area, do you think I should shift the bus dismissals schedule to this, this and this?’ And it's like, ‘That is not my job. I cannot make that decision for you. Here's the information that we have, and that's all that I can do.’

Forecasters discussed that some of their service areas are too large to offer decision support for everyone, and offered strategies to overcome this challenge.

4. CONCLUSION

As the Weather Service continues to evolve, findings from this study help WFOs assess their relationship building practices, including opportunities for enhanced decision support services.