How Visual Design of Severe Weather Outlooks Can Affect Communication and Decision-Making

Abstract Multiday severe weather outlooks can inform planning beyond the hour-to-day windows of warnings and watches. Outlooks can be complex to visualize, as they represent large-scale weather phenomena overlapping across several days at varying levels of uncertainty. Here, we present the results of a survey ( n = 417) that explores how visual variables affect comprehension, inferences, and intended decision-making in a hypothetical scenario with the New Zealand MetService Severe Weather Outlook. We propose that visualization of the time window, forecast area, icons, and uncertainty can influence perceptions and decision-making based on four key findings. First, composite-style outlooks that depict multiple days of weather on one map can lead to biased perceptions of the forecast. When responding to questions about a day for which participants accurately reported there was no severe weather forecast, those who viewed a composite outlook reported higher likelihoods of severe weather occurring, higher levels of concern about travel, and higher likelihoods of changing plans compared to those who viewed outlooks that showed weather for each day on a separate map, suggesting that they perceived the forecast to underrepresent the likelihood of severe weather on that day. Second, presenting uncertainty in an extrinsic way (e.g., “low”) can lead to more accurate estimates of likelihood than intrinsic formats (e.g., hue variation). Third, shaded forecast areas may lead to higher levels of confidence in the forecast than outlined forecast areas. Fourth, inclusion of weather icons can improve comprehension in some conditions. The results demonstrate how visualization can affect decision-making about severe weather and support several evidence-based considerations for effective design of long-term forecasts. Significance Statement Severe weather outlook forecasts can be hard to clearly communicate because they show multiple weather patterns across multiple days and regions with varying uncertainty. The purpose of this study is to explore how visual elements of outlook design affect the way that people understand this complex content. We had three separate groups respond to the same series of questions while viewing different modified versions of the MetService Severe Weather Outlook in Aotearoa New Zealand and compared their responses. We find that the way the outlooks’ time window, forecast area, icons, and uncertainty are visualized can influence how people understand outlooks and make inferences and decisions about severe weather. We discuss how these influences may impact communication and action and present several evidence-based considerations for effective outlook design.