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Weather warnings guide

Help understanding the warnings

Detailed severe weather warnings are available at county/unitary authority level for up to five days ahead.

The UK or any regional page can be added to favourites or bookmarked.

The panel opposite has details of how to view the warnings.

Advisories

Advisories are issued by 1100 daily as routine and indicate confidence of expected severe or extreme weather. Early and flash warnings supercede advisories when confidence levels are 60% or greater.

Early warnings

An early warning of severe weather will normally be issued up to several days in advance whenever the overall risk of widespread disruption in any UK region is 60% or greater.

Flash warnings

Flash warnings of severe weather are issued when confidence of an event reaching specified criteria is above 80%, and should give a minimum of two hours notice. Warnings are issued for every affected county or unitary authority.

Keeping you safe

What should you do when we issue a warning? Follow our advice on actions to take when severe weather is forecast.

How to view the warnings

This example shows the UK warning page. The notes below also apply to all regional warnings pages.

Screenshot Go to note 1 Go to note 2 Go to note 3 Go to note 4 Go to note 5 Go to note 6 Go to note 7 Go to note 8

Left column

Note 1 A clickable map is used to display warnings and advisories and links to pages showing regional detail.

Areas of the UK map are coloured if any of the counties/unitary authorities which make up that region are forecast to have severe weather on the days specified.

When selected, regional pages display warnings and advisories in that region including adjacent regions.

Note 2 Links above the map will jump to a specific day in the forecast. This may not work on hand-held devices.

Note 3 The updated time (local) refers to the time when a new warning or advisory has become available or a warning has expired.

The help buttons link to the guide Guide symbol (this page) and a key to the warnings:

key symbol Weather warnings key

Note 4 As an alternative to clicking on the map, a region can be selected from drop-down menus.

Note 5 The red box on the thumbnail map shows the extent of the area being viewed. Clicking on this map is another way to select a region. The zoom-out button links to the UK page (from a regional page).

Centre panel

Note 6 Weather warnings overview shows areas of the thumbnail maps coloured when warnings or advisories are in force.

Note 7 Flash warnings are issued when severe weather is expected in the next few hours. Further information and local detail is available by going to the regional warnings page.

Early warnings are issued when severe weather is expected to cause widespread disruption in the next few days, with an indication of the level of risk anticipated for different regions.

Advisories are issued routinely by 1100 each day and aim to give an indication of the likelihood of severe or extreme weather occurring during the next few days. Further information is available from the regional warning page.

Right column

Note 8 Other products and more detailed information can be accessed from any page using the expandable navigation bar.

Related internet links provide information about flooding and and transport delays.