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Assessing the Impact of Combining Tropical Cyclone Hazard and Forecast Path Displays on User Comprehension and Decision-Making
DescriptionMany areas of the world are prone to tropical cyclones, and clear communication of all relevant threats is critical for effective risk reduction. When tropical cyclones threaten the US and neighboring countries, officials and the public often rely on the National Hurricane Center's forecast track cone, referred to as the "cone of uncertainty" (COU), to make preparatory decisions. The purpose of the graphic is to communicate the forecast path of the center of the storm together with its uncertainty; however, additional information may be more helpful for preparation, such as the expected hazards, which are not all currently presented in the graphic. Weather organizations have expanded their graphical forecast product suite to include information about the hazards of tropical cyclones, such as the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Hurricane Threats and Impacts (HTI) graphics. The HTI graphics use color-coded probability data depicting potential threatening conditions, accompanied by brief descriptions of the likely impacts (NWS, n.d.). The four HTI graphics each describe a tropical cyclone hazard: wind, storm surge, flooding rain, or tornadoes. While the HTI graphics have been operational at NWS since 2015, they are not as widely used by the public as the COU. Furthermore, there is limited research evaluating the efficacy of the HTI graphics or other graphics that portray individual hurricane hazards and their simultaneous occurrences (Millet et al., 2022). In contrast, there is significant evidence that the COU and other graphics depicting tropical cyclone forecast paths are poorly understood by the public (Broad et al., 2007; Evans et al., 2022; Millet et al., 2020). Moreover, researchers have not examined how hazard information presented in combination with the forecast path affects user comprehension and decision-making. In this work, we investigated the impact of display type and prior tropical cyclone experience on user comprehension and preparatory decision-making. We compared responses across three display types depicting: 1) tropical cyclone hazard risks, 2) forecast path, and 3) the combination of hazard and path information. This research represents a step towards identifying how tropical cyclone warning information can be presented to better support comprehension and decision-making by the general public. The findings from this study will be useful for informing redesign efforts of hurricane risk communication products.
Event Type
Lecture
TimeWednesday, September 11th10:05am - 10:25am MST
LocationFLW Salon J
Tracks
Communications