AUGUST 2014 AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY | 1179 AFFILIATIONS : COLEMAN—Department of Geography, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana; NEWBY, MULTON, AND TAYLOR— Department of Psychology and Research in Education, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas CORRESPONDING AUTHOR : Jill S. M. Coleman, Department of Geography, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47304 E-mail: jscoleman@bsu.edu DOI:10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00137.1 ©2014 American Meteorological Society on severe-weather and other meteorological-related phobia remains sparse. Although published studies on the topic are mini- mal, many public forums such as blogs, social media, and popular news articles continuously recognize emotional distress related to severe weather and offer basic coping strategies. The American Psychological Association, for example, provides information on their website ( www.apa.org/helpcenter/recovering- disasters.aspx) on how to cope emotionally with disasters such as tornadoes. This website also includes more than 3,000 links to related articles in newspa- pers, newsletters, magazines, websites, and research journals. Individuals also rely on many forms of social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), news outlets, and weather-tracking sites to inform them during severe weather events. Consequently, severe weather com- munication needs to be informative, with language appropriate for the threat level while minimizing unnecessary fear and stress. The present study expands and updates the re- search in the 2006 BAMS article—the most recent severe-weather phobia study—by using a larger and more demographically and geographically diverse sample. Furthermore, questions were added to assess the extent and frequency of exposure to severe weather and the level of meteorology education and knowl- edge. Although those living in the central United States are accustomed to thunderstorms and torna- does as the definition of severe weather, we sought to determine if severe weather terminology and experi- ences are geographically specific. For example, East Coast residents may experience more fear associated with Atlantic hurricanes than with individual thun- derstorm warnings. By recognizing the spatial pat- terns and demographics behind inclement-weather phobia, new areas for focusing on treatment options, such as meteorology education and/or counseling, may become apparent. Additionally, this research may provide weather forecasters and media groups with a better understanding of the prevalence of emotional distress associated with severe weather. T he American Psychiatric Association (APA) de- fines phobia as a “marked fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation.” The APA further designates diagnostic criteria for five broad categories of specific phobia classifications, including the natural environment type, where fears are prompted by an object or phenomenon in the natural landscape (e.g., water). Natural environment phobias include weather- related conditions such as fear of thunderstorms (astrophobia), clouds (nephophobia), hurricanes (li- lapsophobia), snow (chionophobia), cold (cryophobia), wind (ancraophobia), and rain (ombrophobia), among others. Natural environment phobias have the second highest prevalence rate (between approximately 9% and 12%) among phobia subtypes, with storm phobia alone occurring in 2%–3% of the general population. In a 1996 Journal of Clinical Psychology article, Westefeld coined the term “severe weather phobia” as describing those “persons with an intense, de- bilitating, and unreasonable fear of severe weather,” where severe weather was narrowly defined as severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. In that study and in a 2006 BAMS article, Westefeld and colleagues exam- ined severe-weather phobia to explain characteristics, causes, and potential treatment methods associated with the phenomena. Other research has investigated the origins of weather phobias, such as from personal experience or parental conditioning, and the identifi- cation of vulnerable populations (e.g., children, lower socioeconomic status); however, quantitative data Weathering the Storm Revisiting Severe-Weather Phobia BY JILL S. M. COLEMAN, KAYLEE D. NEWBY, KAREN D. MULTON, AND CYNTHIA L. T AYLOR