Research to Operations – Transitioning WRN Social Science Research into Operations

In 2012, NOAA issued a call for proposals to stimulate research and develop collaborations between social and physical scientists that can help build a Weather-Ready Nation. The National Weather Service and the Office for Atmospheric Research jointly funded research focused on understanding human behavior and positively affecting decision-making during weather-related events and the formulation and communication of forecast uncertainty, or forecast confidence.

Award recipients included the University of Oklahoma, Arizona State University, East Carolina University, the University of North Carolina, and the Nurture Nature Center in Easton, Penn. These projects involved NOAA experts from the Storm Prediction Center, the National Severe Storms Laboratory, weather forecast offices, and river forecast centers will collaborate on them. The four social science research projects focused on: (1) the use of social media, such as twitter during severe weather, (2) how to motivate residents to prepare and respond to flood warnings, (3) which factors explain why people rush to shelter when a tornado warning is issued and why some do not, (4) how the NWS can improve its products and services to provide helpful information to people who manage public emergency services.

In August 2014, the social science research projects concluded and NOAA is actively working to integrate the research findings into NWS operations. This presentation will provide an overview of the authors' efforts to effectively bridge the gap between research and operations and the development of a framework to help facilitate that transition of research into NWS operations.