NNC’s ongoing research into the public response to flood and hydrologic forecasts was highlighted in three separate presentations at the 2018 annual American Meteorological Society conference in Austin, Texas this week.

Executive Director Rachel Hogan Carr presented on NNC’s work with the Weather Prediction Center of the National Weather Service (NWS), which focused on improving probabilistic forecasts for hazards in the 8-10 day range. NNC’s project partner Dr. Burrell Montz of East Carolina University provided an overview of the findings from the team’s work on understanding how public, emergency managers and water resource managers use and understand probabilistic forecasts through the Hydrologic Ensemble Forecast System (HEFS) of the NWS. Lastly, Carr presented also on previous studies looking at a wide range of coastal and riverine flood forecast products, as part of a panel discussion on NOAA’s efforts to engage stakeholders in understanding needs for water forecasts.

Through these various projects, NNC has worked since 2012 to provide recommendations and support to NWS as it works to improve its ability to communicate flood risk and uncertainty to public and professional audiences.  NNC will be issuing two new reports this spring on its work with the Weather Prediction Center and also the study of the HEFS probabilistic hydrologic forecasts. Reports from NNC’s previous studies are available at socialscience.focusonfloods.org.  Presentations to AMS were audio recorded and will be available on AMS’ website after the conference.  https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/