February 3,2017, 11:35:08AM,EST
In a time where technology and meteorology are very precise,
psychologists and meteorologists are working together to evaluate better
warning systems.
Dr. Laura Myers, director and senior research
scientist at the Center for Advanced Public Safety, who studied warnings
and how people react to them, said people have a tendency to not want
to change plans or their behavior for weather unless they are fairly
sure the weather is going to impact them.
Myers said people get desensitized to watches and warnings after so many don’t produce any impacts for their specific area.
“Improvements
in the warning process are addressing these issues and providing more
specific geolocations and more lead time when possible,” Myers said.
Alert
notifications that are targeted to an exact location and provide more
lead time to help people react better. Also, warnings with potential
impacts and calls to actions help people better respond to threatening
weather.
“When people hear what the weather impacts are, such as
damage and destruction to well-built homes, they start to pay attention.
When they are told they need to take shelter now because their location
is going to take a direct impact, they usually act,” Myers said.
The word emergency, such as a tornado emergency or flash flood emergency, tends to get the attention of people, Myers said.
Rescue workers search
inside a mobile home, Monday, Jan. 23, 2017, in Big Pine Estates that
was damaged by a tornado, in Albany, Ga. Fire and rescue crews were
searching through the debris Monday, looking for people who might have
become trapped when the storm came through. (AP Photo/Branden Camp)
The time a warning is issued to the
public can also make a difference in response. When people are given too
much lead time, they can get tired of waiting and tend to go back to
their business, Myers said.
“That’s why we have to be careful
giving too much information several days out from an event. There is a
real communication process involved in the sequencing of information in
the days and hours leading up to an event,” Myers said.
Regardless of the warning, some people wait until they see their life is in danger.
“A
lot of social media research was done and people said they have to see
[a tornado] before they do something,” AccuWeather Meteorologist Dan
Kottlowski said.
Mike Smith, Senior Vice President of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions and author of
Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather, said there are many reasons why people wait to react.
"There
is considerable inertia in people. They are busy or their attention is
on some project. There is also sociological evidence that people feel
silly for taking shelter; that it somehow reflects poorly on their
courage," Smith said.
He said in order to get people to take
shelter or evacuate, it seems warnings need to come from someone they
trust. Receiving the warning from more than one source can also help,
Smith said.
“We try to issue the warnings very early now so they
take cover, but people need to see that something’s coming at them,”
Kottlowski said.
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Therefore, Kottlowski said they have
started enhanced warnings, which are warnings with amplified wording
like severe and imminent danger.
"Not all warnings have enhanced
wording, it's only when we have a situation when we have a big tornado
already causing damage," Kottlowski said.
Meteorologists and psychologists are looking at more than just the wording.
“Psychologists
are working with meteorologists to come up with an understanding of why
people are just not adhering to the warnings, maybe it’s a combination
of wording and graphics,“ Kottlowski said.
Kottlowski said radars
don't make sense to some people, so there needs to be a simple graphic
that will show were the most dangerous impacts of the severe weather
will occur.
A sign declaring a
mandatory evacuation in anticipation of the arrival of Hurricane Irene
is seen as motorists head north in Nags Head, N.C., Thursday, Aug. 25,
2011 on North Carolina's Outer Banks. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
However, broadcasters are able to explain radars to people in a simple, urgent manner.
"The
really good television meteorologists have mastered the art of using
tone of voice and other cues to persuade people to take action when they
are convinced a really dangerous storm is occurring or imminent," Smith
said.
That will still not solve the problem entirely, experts agree.
“When
you get a really bad outbreak where you have multiple tornadoes moving
very quickly, you are still going to have a lot of fatalities and
injuries because people aren’t going to be able to get out quickly
enough,” Kottlowski said.
Technology, meteorologists and
psychologists are making immense improvements and progress to help save
the lives of people across the globe.
“The goal is to communicate weather information to an educated public who knows what to do when the time comes,” Myers said.
·
I
do not pay attention to weather warnings because they are too many for
too little. Warnings flashing and sounding on every type of media for a
week and then we get 1 inch of snow. One inch of snow in New York is a
weather forcast, not a warning. Alerts and warnings for 30 mph wind is
also a forcast not a warning, a warning is 60 mph or higher winds. I had
to delete Accuweather and Weatherbug from my phone because all day
several times a week while I was at work they would be screaming and
flashing at me about a light drizzle, a snow flake, or a cloud going by.
Perhaps,
People ignore the warnings because weather forecasters have a high
percentage of inaccurate forecasts, and do not admit it. Also many
large storm forecasts even if the storm does hit as predicted are not as
severe as the forecast and newscasters predict. Over forecasting, and
completely wrong forecasting without explanation is causing many people
to disregard important storm forecasts as they believe they can get by
without help.
·
I
expect that our 'spatially aware' (GPS) cell phones will enable more
location-specific warnings that could carry the greatest 'weight'
(importance) with citizens potentially in the path of dangerous weather.
