Experimental Probabilistic Intensity Forecast Products for Landfalling Tropical Cyclone

An increasing body of evidence from the social sciences indicates that publics want more probabilistic information in their weather forecasts. The National Weather Service has taken note and included the intention to increase the communication of probabilistic information in their most recent strategic plan. Along those lines, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) previously developed prototype forecast graphics designed to convey intensity forecast uncertainty using both probabilistic and deterministic values when landfall is possible. Based on feedback from focus groups consisting of NHC core partners and an online survey of Florida residents, the original prototypes were modified, and entirely new ones were created. A second round of surveys showed that the revised prototypes were an improvement in some areas, but there is still work to be done. Promisingly, most people surveyed found the additional probabilistic information to be understandable and the additional probabilistic information to be preferrable. This suggests that some probabilistic landfall intensity product might be warranted. Preliminary results were presented at the AMS Annual Meeting earlier this year. Since then, we have been conducting focus groups with broadcast meteorologists, emergency managers, and other NWS meteorologists in an effort to improve the prototypes even further. Feedback from those focus group sessions will be shared here along with an update on the project in general.