Articles | Volume 2, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-2-101-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-2-101-2019
Research article
 | 
19 Jul 2019
Research article |  | 19 Jul 2019

The Met Office Weather Game: investigating how different methods for presenting probabilistic weather forecasts influence decision-making

Elisabeth M. Stephens, David J. Spiegelhalter, Ken Mylne, and Mark Harrison

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Cited articles

BBC Media Centre: BBC Weather launches a new look, available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/bbc-weather (last access: April 2019), 2018. 
Broad, K., Leiserowitz, A., Weinkle, J., and Steketee, M.: Misinterpretations of the “Cone of Uncertainty” in Florida during the 2004 Hurricane Season, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 88, 651–668, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-88-5-651, 2007. 
Eosco, G.: Pictures may tell it all: The use of draw-and-tell methodology to understand the role of uncertainty in individuals' hurricane information seeking processes, Fifth Symposium on Policy and Socio-economic Research, Second AMS Conference on International Cooperation in the Earth System Sciences and Services, available at: https://ams.confex.com/ams/90annual/techprogram/paper_164761.htm (last access: April 2019), 2010. 
Gigerenzer, G., Hertwig, R., Van Den Broek, E., Fasolo, B., and Katsikopoulos, K. V.: “A 30 % chance of rain tomorrow”: How does the public understand probabilistic weather forecasts?, Risk Anal., 25, 623–629, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2005.00608.x, 2005. 
Gigerenzer, G., Gaissmaier, W., Kurz-Milcke, E., Schwartz, L. M., and Woloshin, S.: Helping doctors and patients make sense of health statistics, Psychol. Sci. Publ. Int., 8, 53–96, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2008.00033.x, 2007. 
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Short summary
The UK Met Office ran an online game to highlight the best methods of communicating uncertainty in their online forecasts and to widen engagement in probabilistic weather forecasting. The game used a randomized design to test different methods of presenting uncertainty and to enable participants to experience being lucky or unlucky when the most likely scenario did not occur. Over 8000 people played the game; we found players made better decisions when provided with forecast uncertainty.
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