Culverhouse’s Alabama Center for Insurance and Information Research, or ACIIR, provides highly credible information and research insights related to risk, including risk associated with severe weather.
In this Washington Post article about issues tracking the path of Hurricane Ian, which has caused catastrophic damage to the state of Florida, Laura Myers, a senior research scientist at ACIIR explained that are hurdles to overcome when it comes to communicating weather forecasts. Part of the trouble stems from human psychology.
She says that people tend to “‘anchor’ their expectations to early forecasts and then are caught unaware when storm predictions change.”
Myers also says that there are opportunities to improve communications to the public about hurricane meteorology, especially in times when a hurricane is not bearing down on a coastal community:
“If you don’t do that in advance and don’t do it in as many different ways as you possibly can, you’re going to have issues with understanding.”