Broadcast Meteorologist Decision Making in the 2016 Hazardous Weather Testbed Probabilistic Hazard Information Project

As primary communicators of severe weather information to the general publics, broadcast meteorologists were included in the 2016 Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) Probabilistic Hazard Information (PHI) project. Broadcasters served as part of an integrated warning team that also included NWS forecasters and emergency managers operating under a Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threats (FACETs) environment. A main objective of the HWT PHI project was to learn how the continuous flow of probabilistic hazard information may impact broadcast meteorologists and their decision making. Broadcast participants performed typical job functions under a simulated television studio environment as they received experimental probabilistic hazard information during three realtime and three displaced realtime events. Research protocols were used to systematically study how broadcast meteorologists interpreted, used, and communicated both PHI and experimental warning messaging developed under the NWS Hazard Simplification project. Decision points of interest included when to run “crawls”, post to social media, interrupt commercials, and interrupt programming. Researchers guided the integrated warning team through individual and group debriefs after each event. Preliminary results from the project will be shared, as well as plans for future experimentation.