Associations of Emotional Divergence in Risk Communication With Forecast Error Type During Typhoon Khanun.

Forecast errors of severe weather events aggravate economic damage and degrade public mental health. Whether forecast errors are underestimated or overestimated can shape public emotional responses differently, which remains unknown. In this study, we investigate the socio-psychological impacts of forecast errors during the landfall of Typhoon Khanun over the Korean Peninsula. We evaluate the predictive performance of multiple lead-hour precipitation forecasts against observational data and conduct a sentimental analysis of over 43,000 online discourses from the NAVER Weather Report Talk platform. Multiple lead-hour precipitation forecasts demonstrate underestimation in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Korean Peninsula and overestimation in the western and southwestern regions. The spatial discrepancies of precipitation forecasts are associated with distinct emotional responses: overestimation (underestimation) makes anxiety and worry (stress and confusion) the dominant emotion types in the discourses from the NAVER Report Talk platform. The findings of this study suggest that expectation-reality mismatch is a key mechanism in risk communication, and the direction of this mismatch differentiates public response. This study provides insights into the potential value of improved forecast accuracy on reducing emotional distress and strengthening public resilience during extreme weather events.