Keeping Calm in the Chaos: An Examination of Forecaster Sense-Making and Partner Response to TORFFs during Hurricane Florence

During landfalling tropical cyclones, one weather threat often overlaps with another in space and time (TORFF). In these circumstances, the overlapping threats present a possible conflict for different publics: for example, tornado products advise people to go low whereas flash flood products often advise people to get to higher ground. This potential confusion during TORFF situations led a NOAA funded Vortex SE research team to explore the experiences of National Weather Service meteorologists, as well as those of public and partner groups before and during Hurricane Harvey (2017) and Hurricane Florence (2018). Drawing on analyses of interviews carried out with NWS forecasters, as well as insights offered by emergency managers during a focus group discussion, this paper examines predictive challenges during Hurricane Florence, a slow moving storm that generated sustained winds and rainfall, extreme storm surge, and catastrophic flooding along the eastern mid-Atlantic region. Specifically, we examine the context of multiple, overlapping hazards: 1. how they were observed, intuited, and negotiated by forecasters, 2. the processes of forecaster prediction and coordination as the storm evolved, and 3. partners’ main concerns and response behaviours. Preliminary findings from this research highlight the challenges Hurricane Florence presented for predicting, communicating, and responding to TORFFs; we also identify possibilities for communicating information related to overlapping watches and warnings for the protection of life and property.