The National Severe Weather Warning Service (shortened to NSWWS) is a service provided by the

Met Office The Met Office, until November 2000 officially the Meteorological Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather and climate service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. The purpose of this service is to warn the public and emergency responders of severe or hazardous

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

which has the potential to cause danger to life or widespread disruption. This allows emergency responders to put plans into place to help protect the public and also allowing the public to make necessary preparations.

Types of warning

Warnings are issued for

severe weather Severe weather is any dangerous meteorological phenomenon with the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption, or loss of human life. These vary depending on the latitude, altitude, topography, and atmospheric conditions. High ...

which is expected to arrive in the next five days. They are issued in response to eight different weather elements:

rain Rain is a form of precipitation where water drop (liquid), droplets that have condensation, condensed from Water vapor#In Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is res ...

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustics, acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorm ...

lightning Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...

snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...

ice Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

fog Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus and is heavily influenc ...

wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

and extreme heat, the newest type of warning, which was added in June 2021.

Warning colours

Warnings are given a colour depending on a combination of both the likelihood of the event happening and the impact the conditions may have and could be yellow, amber or red. Yellow: Be Aware. Severe weather is possible over the next few days and could affect people in the area concerned. Yellow means that people should plan ahead thinking about possible travel delays, or the disruption of your day-to-day activities. The Met Office is monitoring the developing weather situation and Yellow means to keep an eye on the latest forecast and be aware that the weather may change or worsen, leading to disruption of plans within the next few days. Amber: Be Prepared. There is an increased likelihood of severely or extremely bad weather affecting people in the area concerned, which could potentially disrupt people's plans and possibly cause travel delays, road and rail closures, interruption to power and the potential risk to life and property. Amber means people need to be prepared to change plans and protect themselves, their family and community from the impacts of the severe weather based on the forecast from the Met Office. Red: Take Action. Extremely bad weather is expected. Red means people in the areas concerned should take action now to keep themselves and others safe from the impact of the weather. Widespread damage, travel and power disruption and risk to life is likely. People must avoid dangerous areas and they should follow the advice of the emergency services and local authorities.

Warning distribution

The

uses a wide variety of media in order to inform the public of any warnings that have been issued. *

Television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

and

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

are still the main way that people keep up-to-date with the weather so the Met Office uses the weather broadcasts on terrestrial television and radio stations to highlight significant weather warnings. * The Met Office also uses a wide variety of social media in order to highlight severe weather and warnings that have been issued. These range from the

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

and

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

to their own

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel. * The Met Office has developed weather apps for mobile devices which allow users to set up notifications which will alert them when a warning has been issued for their area of interest.

References

External links

Latest UK weather warnings
{{The Met Office Emergency management in the United Kingdom Met Office

Types of warning

Warning colours

Warning distribution

See also

References

External links