National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Dangerous Heat in the Central and Eastern U.S.; Severe Thunderstorms in the Great Lakes

Thunderstorms with strong wind gusts and hail will be possible today from Michigan into the Lower Great Lakes region. A significant and dangerous heat wave will expand from the Central U.S. into the Eastern U.S this weekend through much of next week. Numerous daily record highs and warm lows are likely. Read More >

Overview:

The NWS is changing the format of Flash Flood Warning text products to impact based warnings.  Effective November 18, 2019, each Flash Flood Warning will contain a bulleted format of information describing the flash flood, the source of the information, and a description of the expected impact.

With this change, the NWS is aiming to improve the public response to Flash Flood Warnings by providing easily readable information while Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA)* will only be sent to mobile devices for high level flash flood events that require immediate life-saving action.

With the ability to better characterize the threat of flooding and the expected severity of the impacts, the NWS hopes to lessen the perception that the NWS over-alerts for flash flooding.


*Through November 18, 2019, ALL Flash Flood Warnings have triggered WEA alerts. With more than 4,000 Flash Flood Warnings being issued in the USA each year, there is public perception that the NWS over-alerts for flash flooding.

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Photo: American Red Cross

Impact-Based Flash Flood Warning Fact Sheet

 

 

Example Warning:

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