Surveying the Weather Frontier: audience response to emerging practices in broadcast meteorology

Weather communication improves as we incorporate lessons from disasters and articulate uncertainty in forecasts. How are broadcast viewers and social media followers responding to our evolving practices? A thorough understanding of the audience can guide us to more valuable, educational and unique forecasts.

This talk will interpret the results of an online viewer survey conducted across different regions. The two main topics build on the latest findings of social science and takeaways from recent weather events. The first will gauge response to probabilistic visuals for both routine and high-impact weather. Questions will also seek to identify the strengths and weaknesses of viewer map comprehension during tornado coverage. This new reading of the public can help us remain compelling, authoritative sources.