Emergency Manager preferences for rapidly updating severe weather warnings

TIM allows warnings to “move” with the storm and provide more equitable lead time for locations downstream of the initial warning. While conceptual research demonstrates this value for example cases, research in NOAA’s Hazardous Weather Testbed revealed that motion instabilities (uncertainties in storm speed or direction, time intervals between forecaster intervention, and combinations of each) could also arise with this system that potentially limit usefulness or effectiveness of the product.

To understand the potential trade-offs between the current and future systems, it is important to understand how core partners, such as emergency managers (EMs), would use TIM. In this study, 21 EMs from across the country participated in a simulated severe weather activity where they examined multiple TIM scenarios and provided feedback through surveys and focus groups. The TIM scenarios included visualizations of how TIM might behave under different situations: changes in storm speed, direction, and combinations of each.