• Identify the characteristics of situation awareness and their impact upon the warning decision.
• Be able to incorporate principles of sound situation awareness into the decision on whether or not to warn.
• Be able to configure workstations to aid in providing and maintainig a good situation awareness.

• Be familiar with and consequently apply the methodology of issuing warnings.
• Identify decision making styles and their impact on proper decision making
• Identify the characteristics of team decision making and coordination, and the impacts of associated breakdowns.
• Using all available observational data, identify the severe weather threats (hail, wind, tornadoes, and flash flooding) and the locations where the threat is imminent.

• Be able to acquire spotter reports, determine their value, and assimilate them into the decision-making process.
• Provide the appropriate interaction with emergency maangers as well as law enforcement officials to determine or convey the severe weather threat.
• Provide appropriate interactions with broadcast media outlets to determine and convey the severe weather threat.

Review material related to PCU1, including:

• Staffing Strategies (including Staffing Guidelines page)
• Communications
• Office Setups (including Office Setup Examples page)
• Office Strategies

Review Warning Methodologies presentation for an overview of the four components of an effective convective warning methodology.

Here are other courses that are related to the warning decision making process. Note that these courses are also found under PCU 7 - Composing and Disseminating the Convective Warning Products.

Advanced Warning Operations Course (AWOC) Core Track

• IC2: Situational Awareness and Decision Making in a Warning Environment
  • Lesson 1 - The Warning Process and the Role of Intuition
• IC3: Expertise and Effective Office Warning Strategies
  • Lesson 2 - Cognitive Task Analysis of Expert Warning Forecasters
• IC4: Conveying Warnings and Public Response
  • Lesson 2 - The Warning Response Process
  • Lesson 3 - Effective Warnings

Other WDTB Courses:

• Flash Flood Warning Decision Making Using FFMP-Advanced
• Warning Decision Making Implications from Significant Events
• Best Practices Rationale
• Enhanced Wording Usage in Tornado Warnings & Severe Weather Statements
• How and When to Use "Flash Flood Emergency"

COMET Module on Anticipating Hazardous Weather and Community Risk

Advanced Warning Operations Course (AWOC) Core Track

• IC4: Conveying Warnings and Public Response
  • Lesson 1 - Mitigating Potential Errors in Spotter Reports

Advanced Warning Operations Course (AWOC) Core Track

• IC2: Situational Awareness and Decision Making in a Warning Environment
  • Lesson 2 - Individual Situational Awareness
  • Lesson 3 - Team Situational Awareness
  • Lesson 4 - Situational Awareness Demons: The Enemies of Situational Awareness
  • Lesson 5 - Maintaining Situational Awareness by Managing the Unexpected

"Warning decision making: The relative roles of conceptual models, technology, strategy, and forecaster expertise on 3 May 1999" by Andra, D. L., Jr., E. Quoetone, and W. F. Bunting

"Cognitive task analysis of the warning forecaster task: Final report" by Klien Associates Inc.

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions by Gary Klien (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press 1998)

Decision Traps: The Ten Barriers to Brilliant Decision-Making and How to Overcome Them by J. Edward Russo and Paul J. H. Schoemaker (New York, Simon & Schuster 1989)

QLCS References (Updated with new references used in FY13 courses)

Operational Operations of Extreme Reflectivity Values in Convective Cells by Gerard, A., 1998 (National Weather Digest, 22, 3-8)

"The Radar 'Three-Body Scatter Spike': An Operational Large-Hail Signature" by Lemon, Leslie R.

"The Use of Single-Doppler Radar for Estimating Maximum Hailstone Size" by Witt, A. and S. P. Nelson

"Microbursts: A Handbook for Visual Identification" by Caracena, Fernando, R. L. Holle, and C. A. Doswell III

You can also review the references found on the PCU 5 Reference Page