Storm Warnings: Time Sensitive Proximity

Abstract

Weather-predictive tasks during high risk severe weather events are carried out for the common good of the community by virtual teams of weather professionals. Severe weather predictors are responsible for producing the early warnings that inform people in harms way and potentially save lives. Should we be concerned with the use of “other-generated” information from social media used by these professionals? Teams extend understanding of an event by looking to external sources of situationally relevant information such as storm spotters, publicly generated photos and comments posted to online social media (OSM), and communication with community partners. Situationally relevant OSM, specifically Twitter, provides insight to the information behavior of the team. Here we examine the role of proximity and how it impacts decisions on potentially life-saving information sharing in time sensitive information environments: proximity within the team (shared knowledge state) and proximity to the event (hashtag) specifically are addressed.