User's Perspective and Decision-Making Process Based on S2S Extreme Precipitation Forecast Products—What We Learned during the PRES2iP Workshop

The Prediction of Rainfall Extremes at sub-seasonal to seasonal periods (PRES2iP) project is concerned with extreme precipitation events lasting approximately 14 to 90-day time frame. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation to enhance understanding of extreme precipitation events and improve their prediction by the development of predictive models in conjunction with users of such information. Development of such models or any usable products requires discussion not only among researchers and forecasters but also those who use and rely on such products on an everyday basis, namely Stakeholders.

To understand what characteristics of extreme precipitation events mattered most to Stakeholders, in July 2018, our team invited 22 decision makers from different parts of the United States for a 1.5-day workshop. Our workshop was designed to elicit responses to several questions that were the same to all decision-makers, with no differentiation or limitation based on a type of decision that each of the stakeholders had to make. One of the most enlightening activities during our workshop was a role-playing scenario designed to simulate two scenarios of extreme precipitation and the associated decision making. Our participants were encouraged to make decisions based on set of forecast products provided to them by game moderator. This presentation will summarize what we learned during our breakout sessions and the role-playing scenario game and how they have been incorporated into the research moving forward, which is not only useful for our team, but also to the broader forecasting community.