| Map showing various wind chill warnings, watches and advisories as well as freeze and hard freeze warnings and watches during a major late-December 2022 arctic outbreak. |
| A change to cold weather and freeze warnings and watches has been implemented by the National Weather Service (NWS) beginning this fall and winter. The change is part of the NWS Hazard Simplification initiative. In the past several years, the government weather agency has decreased the number of alerts it issues through consolidationCheck out senior meteorologist Christopher Dolce’s deep dive into what these changes mean for your winter forecasts here. The biggest things you might notice if you pay close attention to weather are that wind chill alerts will be consolidated into cold weather warnings, watches and advisories, while hard freeze watches and warnings have been eliminated (hard freeze messaging, however, will still be provided in regular freeze alerts). In whole, the hope is that these changes will help more people with fewer, simpler alerts. |