The Impact of Probabilistic Tornado Warnings on Risk Perceptions and Responses

Many warnings issued to members of the public are deterministic in that they do not include event likelihood information. This is true of the current polygon-based tornado warning used by the American National Weather Service, although the likelihood of a tornado varies within the boundaries of the polygon. To test whether adding likelihood information benefits end users, two experimental studies and one in-person interview study were conducted. The experimental studies compared five probabilistic formats, two with color and three with numeric probabilities alone, to the deterministic polygon. In both experiments, probabilistic formats led to better understanding of tornado likelihood and higher trust than the polygon alone, although color-coding led to several misunderstandings. When the polygon boundary was drawn at 10% chance, those using probabilistic formats made fewer correct shelter decisions at low probabilities and more correct shelter decisions at high probabilities compared to those using the deterministic warning, although overall decision quality, operationalized as expected value, did not differ. However, when the polygon boundary was drawn around 30%, participants with probabilistic forecasts had higher expected value. The interview study revealed that, although tornado-experienced individuals would not shelter at 10% chance, they would take intermediate actions, such as information-seeking and sharing.