Life Group Weather Risk Perceptions and the Warning Dissemination Process

This presentation describes how weather risk perceptions of the public vary within a location and across locations and how that variation impacts the messaging process. In evaluations of actual weather events, the weather enterprise partners are typically surprised by how people react to weather warnings. Only through experience do the partners come to realize that people’s perceptions of risk vary. Public perceptions of risk have a lot to do with knowledge and experience. Their perceptions are shaped by what they have learned and the experiences they have faced. Younger people have less knowledge and experience with weather and psychologically have not developed a maturity to appreciate danger. They tend not to be weather aware and they do not think anything bad can happen to them. Warning information needs change over the life cycle of the public. It is important to understand those needs by age evolution to understand the connection between their needs and the way weather information is disseminated to them. As the Baby Boomer, Generation X, and Millennial life groups age and their needs start to impact the warning dissemination process, there will be more demands on the process and the methods by which they want to get weather information. It is also critical to understand that as people move through the various life cycles they evolve from an individual centric world-view to a family and community centric world-view that is more concerned with safety and security.