Contextualizing disaster phases using social media data: Hurricane risk visualizations during the forecast and warning phase of Hurricane Irma

We find that cone, satellite, and spaghetti-plot image types are retweeted more, while watch/warning imagery is retweeted less. In addition, manually generated tweets are retweeted more than automated tweets. These results highlight several information needs to incorporate into the current NWS hurricane forecast visualization suite, such as uncertainty and hazard-specific information at longer lead times, and the importance of investigating the effectiveness of different social media posting strategies.

Our results also demonstrate the roles and responsibilities that professional sources engage in during these subphases, which builds understanding of disasters by contextualizing the subphases along the transition from long-term preparedness to postevent response and recovery.