We conducted a two-phase study with five National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices in the Western United States region to improve the visualization of probabilistic forecast information (PFI) for their communities. We advance the concept of community risk thresholds (CRT), based on rhetorical commonplaces (communal beliefs, norms, and values) as a productive focus for forecasting. Our results suggest that CRTs are a promising heuristic for simplifying the visual presentation of PFI and increasing its community utility. We discuss the synergies and challenges of action research projects in weather risk communication and conclude by projecting future work focused on (a) visualizing community risk thresholds and (b) identifying productive pairings between weather hazard type and graphic genre.
Olman et al. (Sun,) studied this question.