The National Weather Service (NWS) is responsible for ensuring that the U.S is a weather ready nation. The mission of the NWS focuses on protecting the lives and property of those in the U.S, while also enhancing the national economy. The number of high-impact weather events have increased over the past decades, suggesting a need for a more effective NWS. This paper focuses on improving the NWS by following the systems engineering approach and using system architecting principles.

This dissertation traces three ethical dimensions, or values, of weather warnings in the National Weather Service (NWS): an ethic of accuracy, and ethic of care, and an ethic of resilience. Each appear in forecaster work but are not equally visible in the identity of a forecaster as scientific expert. Thus, I propose that the NWS should consider rethinking its science through its relationship to multiple publics, creating what Sandra Harding calls "strong objectivity." To this end, I offer the concept of empathic accuracy as an ethic that reflects the interrelatedness of precision and care that already attend to forecasting work. First, I offer a genealogy of the ethic of accuracy as forecasters see it. Beginning in the 1960s, operational meteorologists mounted an ethic of accuracy through the "man-machine mix," a concept that pointed to an identity of the forecasting scientist that required a demarcation between humans and technologies. It is continually troubled by the growing power of computer models to make predictions. Second, I provide an ethnographic account of the concern expressed by forecasters for their publics. I do so to demonstrate how an ethic of care exists alongside accuracy in their forecasting science, especially during times of crisis. I recreate the concern for others that their labor performs. It is an account that values emotion and is sensitive to context, showing what Virginia Held calls "the self-and-other together" that partially constitutes a forecaster identity. Third, I critique the NWS Weather Ready Nation Roadmap and its emphasis on developing in the public an ethic of resilience. I argue that, as currently framed, this ethic and its instantiation in the initiative Impact Based Decision Support Services narrowly defines community to such an extent that it disappears the public. However, it also reveals other valences of resilience that have the potential to open up a space for an empathetic accuracy. Finally, I close with a co-authored article that explores my own commitment to an ethic of relationality in disaster work and the compromises that create tension in me as a scholar and critical participant in the weather community. / Ph. D. / Every year, weather disasters affect people’s lives. When tornadoes, flash floods, winter weather, and heat threaten communities, forecasters in the National Weather Service (NWS) have the responsibility to issue alerts, which are called warnings, to help keep people safe from harm. For decades, these professionals have used the best technologies they have—Doppler radar, satellites, and observation networks—to scan the skies for potential danger. And they have done so diligently and with great attention to making their forecasts and warnings as accurate as possible. Yet each year, as these weather phenomena pose risks to people in their local communities, accuracy of warnings is not enough to keep people safe. This dissertation contributes to such concerns. Rather than focus on specific technologies that might be improved, I explore the professional identity of the NWS forecaster and potential changes to their science that might help them meet their mission to protect life. I offer insight into how NWS forecasters have chosen to see themselves and their role in society, and why. Specifically, my goal is to explore ways that the agency’s focus on accuracy is unintentionally masking other values that are important to the professional practices and activities of the forecaster. To help make the complexity of their identities more apparent, I offer a new kind of ethic, an <i>empathetic accuracy</i>, that better reflects not just the attention forecasters give to correct predictions but predictions done with care and concern for the people they serve. I explore the history of the term accuracy to show why it is so important in their work; I show how the notion of care is already key to their jobs; and I critique current policies that may either diminish or enhance their relationships with people in the general public. I suggest that the agency should consider developing a better kind of science that accounts for this complex professional image of the forecaster as scientist and public servant. More importantly, my goal is to show that NWS forecasters have alternative roles they can engage with that are equally, if not more important, to the people whose lives they are committed to protecting.

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Alabama, also known as the Dixie state, is no stranger to severe weather. Severe weather can occur during much of the year. Experienced local forecasters have long suspected that North and Central Alabama has its own tornado alley. Many of these forecasters have noticed storm tracks as well as tornado tracks to be similar to past historic events. Many questions have risen about the exact influential factors that cause convective initiation and tornadic development. For example the effects of terrain, water, and population on tornado climatology will be discussed in this study. The sometimes unreliable climatology of tornadoes will be addressed as well as the history of storm reporting. Tornado clusters were found and further explained regarding relationships with terrain, water, and population. Through this research, it is concluded that there are two distinct tornado regions that exist in North and Central Alabama.

Heat stress occurs when the body cannot adequately cool itself due to the combined contributions of metabolic heat, environmental factors and clothing. Heat stress found in the workplace puts employees at risk of developing heat-related illnesses, disorders and could be fatal. The wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) index is the current method used to assess environmental contributions to heat stress in an occupational setting. The purpose of this thesis was to explore whether the National Weather Service's Heat Index (HI) could substitute for the WBGT Index during occupational heat stress exposure assessment. The possibility of using the HI for heat stress exposure assessments was explored by first developing an occupational exposure limit based on the HI and then by comparing the HI to WBGT Index over a range of environments. Data from 10 selected studies were reviewed and categorized into two groups (Classic Data and Progressive Data) based on the method used to determine the upper limit of the prescriptive zone. WBGT and HI values were estimated from the environmental data provided in the 10 studies and the metabolic demands were also noted. These data were used to illustrate the relationship between environment (WBGT and HI) and metabolic rate. Next the relationship between HI and WBGT was compared over a range of environments consisting of combinations of air temperature and percent relative humidity as defined by the NWS's Heat Index Chart. Finally the effects of adding a high radiant heat load (Tg = Tdb+10 °C) to the relationship between WBGT and HI was explored. The HI occupational exposure limits were protective of the upper limit threshold points in a manner similar to WBGT. A greater spread in the Classic and Progressive upper limit data was observed above the occupational exposure limit when expressed as HI. High correlation was observed (R2 = 0.95) between the WBGT Index and HI over a range of environments, assuming no radiant heat. The incremental increase in HI due to high radiant heat indicated a strong dependency on the absolute value of HI, which makes using HI to predict WBGT in radiant heat environments problematic. Findings suggest the Heat Index could be used to assess heat stress exposures and to set occupational exposure limits for hot environments in the absence of high radiant heat.

In September 2008, the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted that Hurricane Ike would make landfall on Galveston Island as a strong category three storm. This led the NWS to release a statement of 'certain death' if people did not adhere to the emergency evacuation messages. Millions of people fled the Texas coast. Using Hazleton and Long's (1993) taxonomy of public relations strategies, experimental methods were conducted with various evacuation messages to test emergency communication. Grunig's (1997) situational theory of publics was used to determine strategy influence. Problem recognition, constraint recognition, and level of involvement were tested. In addition, tests were conducted to measure source expertise, trust, and attitude depending on the message source. Results indicated that a national message source produced higher constraint recognition than a local message source. The national message source produced higher expertise, trust, and attitude then a local message source. The threat and punishment strategy produced the highest level of information-seeking behavior. Information-seeking behavior was the lowest when a persuasive strategy was used. Constraint recognition produced the weakest effect on information-seeking behavior. In conclusion, emergency management communicators must use the correct message strategy to have an effect on information-seeking behavior.