Emergency Management Decision Making during Severe Weather

Emergency managers make time-sensitive decisions in order to protect the public from threats including severe weather. Simulation and questionnaires were used to capture the decision-making process of emergency managers 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.