As daylight shrinks and winter approaches, you will notice a different naming convention with a few cold weather alerts.
No longer will Hard Freeze Watches and Warnings be issued during the growing season when temperatures will drop well into the 20s and create a hard frost on everything. These alerts will simply be disseminated as Freeze Watches and Warnings. A Watch is always issued well in advance and a Warning within 24 hours of the cold outbreak.
Wind Chill Advisories are being replaced by Cold Weather Advisories and Wind Chill Warnings will now be called Extreme Cold Warnings.
These changes were instituted by the National Weather Service to become a more weather- ready nation. This includes simplifying alert names to more effectively communicate weather threats.
