A survey is now seeking responses from emergency management decision makers involved in planning, preparing for and responding to severe weather.
Most of Australia’s severe weather and storm forecasting is currently focused on predicting the hazards themselves, including severe thunderstorms and strong winds. However, it’s also important to forecast the impacts of storms and strong winds – a capability that is currently in development – as this information helps contextualise the community impact and risks when a storm hits, and inform subsequent response actions.
To help develop this impact-focused capability, researchers from the national sector-wide Sector partner engagement to enhance severe weather impact predictions project are currently engaging with emergency management and response organisations to understand user needs of severe weather impact prediction tools. This project is a collaboration between Natural Hazards Research Australia, Geoscience Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology and Collaborative Consulting Co.
The first stage of engagement is a short online survey to understand where emergency service users currently get their information and what they need to know before and during a storm. The survey is aimed at anyone who makes decisions when planning, preparing for or responding to severe weather.
The last day to complete the survey is 19 July.
It includes questions about decision-making roles, timescales, information currently being accessed, key decisions being made and usefulness of different pieces of impact information (for response, planning and policy). Results will help develop a better understanding of the information that decision makers need when planning, preparing for and responding to severe weather, to inform the potential development of new real-time decision-making tools and roadmaps for Geoscience Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology.
Lead researcher on this project, Liza Gelt from Collaborative Consulting Co, highlights why survey responses are important when building impact-based severe weather prediction capabilities.
“We are hoping that the survey will be completed by anyone who is involved in storm and severe weather response across the agencies, especially those from State Emergency Services and local governments,” she said.
“Your responses will help us understand exactly what you need when responding to severe weather so that we can minimise the impacts of storms on the community.”
Follow-up workshops
Following on from the survey, researchers are coordinating several online and in-person workshops with decision makers in emergency management organisations, to further validate the results of the survey and gather more detailed intel on their information needs when responding to severe weather. You can elect to be sent further information about the workshops, including dates and locations, by filling out the survey.
The research is being conducted by Liza Gelt, Rosie Tran and Dr Michael Rumsewicz (Collaborative Consulting Co), with support from Dr Harald Richter (Bureau of Meteorology) and Craig Arthur (Geoscience Australia).