National Weather Service Simplifies Flood Products; Goes Into Effect Today

All information from the National Weather Service (weather.gov).

A Weather–Ready Nation is about readying your community for extreme weather, water, and
climate events. The Hazard Simplification project is designed to simplify the communication of
information and improve the understanding and utility of forecasts and warnings. To serve this
purpose, the National Weather Service will consolidate and/or reformat Flood Watches, Warnings,
and Advisories, beginning today.

Current products that have been consolidated:

A Flood Watch will now cover all criteria formerly covered under…
• Flood Watch
• Flash Flood Watch

A Flood Advisory will now cover all criteria formerly covered under…
• Urban and Small Stream Flood Advisory
• Arroyo and Small Stream Flood Advisory
• Small Stream Flood Advisory,
• Flood Advisory
• Hydrologic Advisory

Current products that have been reformatted into What, Where, When, Impacts, and Additional Details:
• Flood Watch
• Flood Watch for Forecast Points
• Flash Flood Watch
• Flood Warning
• Flood Warning for Forecast Points
• Flood Advisory
• Flood Advisory for Forecast Points

Flash Flood Watches will still be issued when conditions include:
• Possibility of flash flooding due to non-convective causes (e.g., dam or levee failure, ice jam)
• Possibility of flash flooding and debris flows caused by excessive rainfall on burn scars or in debris flow and landslide-prone areas

The Flash Flood Warning and Flash Flood Statement will remain in Impact-Based Warning (IBW) format.

Flood Product Examples – Current vs. Consolidated and/or Reformatted
Flash Flood Watches (FF.A) and Flood Watches (FA.A) will be consolidated into one Flood
Watch product (FA.A) when the immediate cause is excessive rainfall.

Additional examples of consolidated and/or reformatted flood products are available at:
weather.gov/hazardsimplification/repairprogress

Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS