Webinar: Public Trust in Changed Forecasts: Evidence from Atlantic Canada and Hurricane Dorian

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Public Trust in Changed Forecasts: Evidence from Atlantic Canada and Hurricane Dorian

Amber Silver, Joel Finnis, Brandon Behlendorf, and Emily Reid-Mussond

Hurricane Dorian affected large swaths of the Caribbean and the eastern coast of the United States, before making landfall in Atlantic Canada—first in Nova Scotia, and then again in Newfoundland. Although this storm was well forecasted, by both the National Hurricane Center (USA) and the Canadian Hurricane Center (Canada), it was not without its controversies. In the United States, the storm’s track was incorrectly extended into Alabama by then-President Donald J. Trump during a White House press briefing. This ignited a flurry of discussion about the effect of forecast accuracy and/or inconsistency on public trust. It also raised the question: How would end-users in Atlantic Canada perceive storm-related information as the hurricane moved towards the region? To understand the forecasting process within Canada, including the (often-times) subjective decisions that forecasters make when developing their products, and how Hurricane Dorian information was perceived and acted upon by members of the general public, we conducted semi-structured interviews with Environment and Climate Change Canada forecasters and disseminated a large sample questionnaire to residents of Atlantic Canada. The research results and their implications will be discussed in the context of public safety and probabilistic forecast potential.

Presenter: Dr. Amber Silver, Assistant Professor at the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity, at the University at Albany, New York.