1. On January 2016, a historic winter storm pummeled the Mid-South, Carolinas, Mid-Atlantic and southern New
England. While many areas were receiving record breaking snow totals, some areas experienced devastating
coastalflooding. As one means to improve risk communication during these types of events, the National
Weather Service (NWS) developed changes to the icons depicted on all of its point-forecast pages, that were
implemented nationally on July 7, 2015.
These changes included implementation of icon images with increased clarity, new 6-hour increments for
rapidly-changing weather and new color blocks to highlight forecast hazards. The new format provides
forecast information at a glance with higher temporal specificity and also clearly points out those times when
NWS Watches, Warnings, and Advisories are in effect for specific locations.
This change to the way NWS depicts its icons has received very positive feedback from users. One such note
was received from a citizen in New Jersey on this new approach, who experienced calamitous coastal
flooding:
“Hello, Point Pleasant Beach New Jersey's forecasts since this past Friday (January 22, 2016) through today
(Sunday, January 23, 2016) have been phenomenally spot on!!!! Thank you so so much!!! Your red color
background highlighting those days plus the words right there relating to the term name of each day's weather
was just great. And the letter i symbol for information on those days was also a huge huge help. The red
background highlighting the days in question along with the wording on those days was very understandable
as was the forecasting before time. Thank you for your time your efforts. We love that your site gives weather
and just weather. Thank you and please get rest and say safe in tough weather and always.”
Changes to the icons were based on analysis of 6,700 public comments collected in 2014. Also, many of these
changes are based on the results of a research project led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research
(Demuth, Lazo, & Morss, 2012; Demuth, Morss, Lazo, & Hilderbrand, 2013).
Research continues as part of the NWS Hazard Simplification project to better convey risk and life-saving
forecast information in support of building a Weather-Ready Nation.