Weather Salience: A Preliminary Investigation into Relationships with the Big Five Personality Traits, Exposure to Severe Weather Events, Weather Anxiety, and Storm Safety Behaviors

This study, based on 2018 archival data, examined a novel aspect of responses and sensitivities to weather that expands the concept of weather salience beyond Stewart’s (2009) framework of generalized weather-oriented attention. We examined in a majority-Canadian, international sample weather salience’s relationship with the Big Five personality traits, exposure to severe weather events, weather anxiety and storm fear, and storm-related safety behaviors. We found a tendency for participants to report little or very little fear of severe weather conditions, despite many having experienced at least one particularly frightening severe weather. Storm-related protective actions were predicted by storm fear but not neuroticism, and were unrelated to conscientiousness and weather knowledge. Storm fear was predicted by neuroticism and the social influence of friends and family members; openness was significantly associated, albeit weakly, with direct sensing of weather conditions. We also address some concerns around the psychometric makeup of the Weather Salience Questionnaire, Storm Fear Questionnaire (Nelson et al., 2013), and Storm Safety Behaviors Scale (Krause et al., 2018).