Emergency Manager Descriptive Decision Making Model
Emergency management officials must make time-sensitive decisions, such as whether or not to issue alerts, during hazardous weather events. Simulation and questionnaires were used to capture the decision-making process of emergency managers (n=9) during severe weather events. These data were combined with insights from emergency manager instructors, National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters, and experienced emergency managers to develop a descriptive decision-making model of weather information usage, weather assessments, and decisions made during severe weather. This decision-making model can be used to develop better decision support tools, improve training, and to understand how innovative weather information could potentially affect emergency managers' role of protecting the public.
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Information Source
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Median Perceived Value 1-5 (Range)
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Perceptual Cues Sought by Accessing the Source
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Spotter Reports
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5 (4-5)
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Ground truth and constant updates of wind speeds, circulation, storm tops, hail, rainfall; verify radar interpretation
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Storm Relative Velocity (SRV)
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5 (4-5)
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Movement, intensity, structure, and speed of storm; areas of wind shear; actual wind speed and direction inside storm
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Radar Reflectivity
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5 (3-5)
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Current location, size, structure, movement, and intensity of storm; rear-flanking downdraft; V-notch; hook echo structure; big picture (especially looking for storms moving in from the south and west); right hand shift; indication of hail
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Radar
Velocity
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5 (3-5)
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Current location, structure, movement, intensity and speed of storm; presence and direction of wind shear
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Composite Reflectivity
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4 (3-5)
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Current location, size, movement, and intensity of storm; inflow; wind shear; hail
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Mesonet
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4 (2-5)
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Wind speed and direction; rainfall; temperature; pressure; location of fronts and dry lines; data regarding flood prone areas
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TV reports
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4 (2-5)
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Ground truth; second opinion; location of storm; forecasts
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Communication with fire/police depts.
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- - -
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Exact location of storm
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Communication with local NWS
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- - -
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Look for watches and warnings; help with cues gathered from radar information; help with deciding whether or not to sound sirens
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Vertically Integrated Liquid (VIL)
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- - -
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Indication of hail presence and approximate size
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Perceived value and use of information sources by emergency managers during a severe weather warning issued by the local NWS office.
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