Source: http://www.mlive.com

Watch or warning? Preferences, perceptions, and usage of forecast information by members of the Canadian public

Amber Silver and Jean Andrey Department of Geography & Environmental Management

University of WaterlooWaterloo, Ontario, Canada

World Weather Open Science Conference18 August 2014 | Montreal, Canada

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Outline

• Introduction

• Purpose and research questions

• Methods

• Socio-demographics

• Results

• General weather knowledge

• Weather salience, trust, preparedness

• Discussion and conclusions

• Acknowledgements

Images: Damage in downtown Goderich, Ontario1

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Introduction

Wide variety of weather products, including: daily forecasts, marine forecasts, special weather statements, and severe weather watches and warnings.

Utilizing a complex monitoring infrastructure, forecasters develop tens of thousands of unique forecasts per day.

The ultimate objective: to aid decision-making by end-users.

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Introduction

(Image Source: NWS)

(Image Source: Environment Canada)

The primary purpose of this research project was to explore the

relationship between forecast perceptions, preferences, and usage.

1. From where and how often do respondents access

weather information?

2. Is weather salience related to forecast perception and/or

usage?

3. Are respondents typically active or passive consumers of

weather information? 5

Purpose & Research Questions

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Methods

• Semi-structured interviews and small focus groups (35)– September 29th to November 29th

• Close-ended questionnaire (268)– December 27th to March 15th

INTERVIEW SCRIPTA)General weather questionsB)August 21st tornado C)August 24th storm systemD)Cell phone and social media usageE)Socio-demographics

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Interview Script and Questionnaire

QUESTIONNAIREA)General weather questionsB)August 21st tornado

• Protective actions • Damages and injuries

C)August 24th storm D)Immediate recoveryE)Community meetingsF)Long term recoveryG)Socio-demographics

New

INTERVIEW SCRIPTA)General weather questionsB)August 21st tornado C)August 24th storm systemD)Cell phone and social media usageE)Socio-demographics

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Interview Script and Questionnaire

QUESTIONNAIREA)General weather questionsB)August 21st tornado

• Protective actions • Damages and injuries

C)August 24th storm D)Immediate recoveryE)Community meetingsF)Long term recoveryG)Socio-demographics

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Met

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Table 1: Socio-demographics of the questionnaire sample (n=268) in comparison to the census area (Statistics Canada, 2007).

SourceAt least once per day (%)

A few times per week (%)

Once per week (%)

Rarely/ Never (%)

n

Environment Canada (website) 28 27 13 33 243

The Weather Network (website) 25 24 14 37 231

The Weather Network (television) 29 18 16 37 233

Local television station(s) 34 14 9 43 219

Local radio station(s) 54 15 7 24 236

Cell phone "app" 24 12 4 61 217

Talk to people 48 27 10 15 227

Other 11 4 7 79 76

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Results: General Weather Knowledge

Table 2: Responses to the question: "In a typical week, how often do you access the following to learn about the weather?" Values are rounded to the nearest percent..

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Results: General Weather Knowledge

Most participants check the weather for pragmatic reasons.

Distinction between typical weather consumers and “weather enthusiasts”

• Frequency and sources for seeking information on the weather.

• General weather knowledge.

Most participants had a general understanding between a weather watch and a weather warning.

• Weather watch as “less severe”• Weather warning as “more urgent”• A few interviewees able to fully define

both terms, while 10 could not distinguish between the two.

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Results: General Weather Knowledge

"Um, a watch is just to, you know, be aware that there’s something that could be going through. A warning is a little bit more severe, I do believe . . . A watch is just,

you know, 'Pay attention', and a warning is 'Now it’s coming so just be careful'." (Female, 25-years-old)

On the difference between a weather watch and a weather warning:

“Weather watch is just exactly what it says. It’s nothing imminent or—I don’t want to say not that important, cause it is important, but when it’s—watch or warning—

warnings—right? I know the difference, I just can’t think of it right now. Cause the warning is that it’s coming. And that’s, they put it down in stone. And you need to

pay attention and be aware.” (Female, 47-years-old)

“A weather watch is that there is the potential for a system to come through, and a weather warning is when there is, um, there is, uh, facts and proof that the system is coming through, and it’s, it’s gonna happen, so, or there’s a higher percentage

chance of it happening.” (Male, 24-years-old)

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Results: Forecast Preferences

Figure 1: Responses to the question: "If an Environment Canada weather warning was issued for your area, what would be the best way to make this information available to you?" The results of this question illustrate respondents' preference for automated communications mediums. Values are rounded to the nearest percent.

Active versus passive consumption

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Results: Forecast Preferences

“So many people carry cell phones . . . There’s nothing else that in

today’s society anybody carries with them, because everything

else you’ve got to turn on, go seek out. If it’s a computer, you

gotta turn it on or go look for it. If it’s a radio, you’ve gotta either

be in your car with the radio on or, you know, in a building with

that. And TV, you gotta wait for a time [that the weather is] gonna

be on. A cell phone is with you no matter where you go. No

matter what phone it is, [a text message] will come." (Male, 44-years-

old)

On the best way to disseminate warning information:

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Results: Forecast Preferences

On the best way to disseminate warning information:

“There’s people that are saying we should have our siren back [but] you know, I don’t agree. We can all become paranoid people and, you know, like you’re saying, get a radio that’s dedicated to Environment Canada

that’s gonna tell you beep beep—or we can just carry on with life and deal with the blows that come, and I think we have to show some moderation

on how we deal with this.” (Female, 50-59 years old)

“If there was a way of bypassing with the technology we have today. Um, cell phones and phone systems, even landlines. Even televisions. If

there’s a way of automatically turning a television on, even though it’s off, and I’m sure that possibility is there. And just blare a siren through the

television or blare it through your landline phone. I’m sure the technology is there to do stuff like that.” (Male, 55-60 years old)

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Results: Weather Salience

Figure 2: Responses to five questions that probed weather salience. Values are rounded to the nearest percent.

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Results: Trust

Figure 3: Responses to three questions that probed issues of trust. Values are rounded to the nearest percent.

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Results: Preparedness and Risk Aversion

About one-fourth of the respondents indicated that they had reliable access to a weather radio.

Results from in-person interviews showed most respondents were unaware of Environment Canada’s Weatherradio program or weather radios in general.

Most respondents indicated that they had enough food, water, and supplies to last 72 hours in the case of an emergency.

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Results: Preparedness and Risk Aversion

Figure 4: Responses to two questions that probed issues of preparedness and risk aversion. Values are rounded to the nearest percent.

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Discussion & Conclusions

1) End-users interact with weather

information in a variety of complex ways.

In particular, socio-demographic and

contextual factors influence whether and

how individuals access weather

information.

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Discussion & Conclusions

2) Individuals obtain weather information

both actively and passively.

When asked how individuals would prefer

to obtain weather information, a strong

preference emerged for automatically

delivered information— especially for

weather watches and warnings.

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Discussion & Conclusions

3) Participants displayed relatively high

levels of weather salience and general

weather knowledge.

Future research may benefit from

incorporating a systematic random

sampling framework to explore the

relationship between these variables.

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Forthcoming Contributions

Silver, A. (2014). Watch or warning? Perceptions, preferences, and usage of forecast information by members of the Canadian public.

Meteorological Applications DOI: 10.1002/met.1452

Silver, A. and J. Andrey. (2014). The influence of previous disaster experience and socio-demographics on protective behaviors during two successive tornado events. Weather, Climate, and Society 6(1): 91-103.

Silver, A. and J. Grek-Martin. (Under review). “Now we understand what ‘community’ really means”: Exploring the positive and negative impacts of disaster on place attachments. The Journal of

Environmental Psychology.

I would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their generous assistance and support with this research:

Goderich Public LibraryGoderich Ontario Tornado Victims and SupportGoderich Tornado Clean-Up HubSAVE DOWNTOWN GODERICHGoderich Trees Project104.9 The BeachGoderich Signal Star NewspaperInstitute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction

Richard StewartFrancesca DobbynLuke Elliott Jody Armstead

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Acknowledgements

Thank-you!Questions?

Amber Silver

a2silver@uwaterloo.ca

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Conrad C. 2009. Severe and Hazardous Weather in Canada: the Geography of Extreme Events. Oxford University Press: Toronto. 205 pp.

Environment Canada. 2011b. Summer hazards. Accessed on-line on 1 May, 2012 at: http://www.ec.gc.ca/

Sills, D. and A. Ashton, 2012: Examination of a remarkable Great Lake-spawned tornadic supercell: the 2011 Goderich Ontario F3 tornado event. Preprints, 26th AMS Conference on Severe Local Storms, Nashville, TN, Amer. Meteorol. Soc., Paper 6.4.

Stockton A. 2011. F3 tornado aftermath in Goderich: like a war zone. Accessed on 2 May, 2012 at: http://www.theweathernetwork.com/

References