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Regional Outbreaks of Severe Weather Through Early Next Week; Early Season Heat Wave across the South

Active spring pattern across the center of our nation with several episodes of severe weather and heavy rainfall expected into next week. The potential for very large hail, long track tornadoes, severe wind gusts, frequent cloud to ground lightning strikes and flash flooding are in the outlook. Furthermore, dangerous early season heat wave continues for the Gulf Coast states into early next week. 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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