A Weather-Ready Nation for All? The Demographics of Severe Weather Understanding, Reception, and Response

Abstract

Abstract NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) provides forecasts, warnings, and decision support to the public for the protection of life and property. The NWS Weather-Ready Nation model describes the process of applying weather information to achieve societal value. However, it is not clear how different racial and socioeconomic groups across the United States receive, understand, and act upon the weather information supplied under this model. There may be barriers that keep important, lifesaving information from the populations at the highest risk of severe weather impacts. This paper estimates the extent of racial and socioeconomic disparities in severe weather risk information reception, comprehension, response, and trust, as well as severe weather preparedness and risk perceptions in the United States. We use data from the University of Oklahoma’s Severe Weather and Society Survey, which is annually completed by a sample of 3000 U.S. adults (age 18+) that is designed to match the characteristics of the U.S. population. We pool data over four years (2017–20) to provide reliable severe weather risk prevalence statistics for adults by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic characteristics. As a robustness check, we supplement this information with data from the annual FEMA National Household Survey. We find that racial and socioeconomic groups receive, understand, trust, and act upon severe weather information differently. These findings suggest that NWS and their partners should adjust their communication strategies to ensure all populations receive and understand actionable severe weather information. Significance Statement It is crucial that severe weather risk communication is received, appropriately interpreted, and trusted by all communities—especially the most vulnerable. Past research has not explained how different racial and socioeconomic groups receive, understand, and act upon NWS forecasts and warnings. This study finds that racial and socioeconomic groups receive, understand, trust, and act upon severe weather information differently. Risk communication strategies should be adjusted to eliminate barriers that keep important, lifesaving information from vulnerable populations.