Research from Joseph Ripberger and the University of Oklahoma's Center for Risk and Crisis Management found that the public can interpret the term 'possible' or 'possibly' as representing probabilities ranging from 10% to 90%.
Notes on verification
General finding well-corroborated by Ripberger and CRCM's published research on public interpretation of probabilistic language, though the exact '10%-90%' figure for 'possible' specifically could not be pinpointed in a single source. [tier=silver indep_score=0.7 clusters=2 claim_tier=notable] [kind-backfill 2026-09-15: kind=attributed eligibility=high]
Sources
- [PDF] Severe Mesoscale Analysis Experiment - Final Report - NOAA VLab (seed:science_and_space)
- https://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/2015/parker/Ripberger_2015.pdf (corroboration)
- http://crcm.ou.edu/pubs/RipbergerEtAl2014.pdf (corroboration)