The National Weather Service in Cheyenne announced in an online post this past week that a few winter related threats are going to go under a new identification and criteria starting this year.
In the announcement, NWS in Cheyenne stated, “Starting today, slight changes will be made to some of our cold season products. The goal with these changes are to help improve messaging of these hazards. The biggest change will be to wind chill products. Wind Chill Watch/Warning/Advisory will be replaced with Extreme Cold Watch/Warning and Cold Weather Advisory. This change reflects that very cold temperatures are dangerous with or without the wind! As a result, our cold weather Warning and Advisory criteria has been updated and adjusted based on climatology and impacts.
Our freeze products will also change slightly as well. Instead of having Hard Freeze and Freeze Watch/Warning products, it will be consolidated into just Freeze Watch/Warning to simplify messaging.”