Broadcast Meteorologist Use of Social Media in the 2018 Hazardous Weather Testbed Probabilistic Hazard Information Project

NOAA continuously strives to improve severe weather communication and empower individuals to take appropriate self-protective actions. The NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) is a conceptual framework and physical space where researchers, National Weather Service forecasters, and core partners participate in experiments to improve communication of severe weather information. The HWT Probabilistic Hazard Information (PHI) project focuses on the use of probability of hazard (tornado, wind/hail, lightning) occurrence to better communicate severe weather impacts. As the main communicators of severe weather information to the public, it is important to study broadcast meteorologists and assure that they can access, understand, use, and communicate this probabilistic information effectively. For three weeks, two broadcast meteorologists simulated television and social media coverage using probabilistic information during past severe weather cases. This presentation explores how broadcast meteorologists’ use of Twitter changed with the introduction of probabilistic information. Researchers used real-world tweets from the cases as a baseline to compare to tweets made during the experiment. The participants’ current social media pages were also researched to compare their typical Twitter coverage. Results focus on tweet content, including text and the use of images.