Gale warning

Weather services issue a gale warning for maritime locations currently or imminently experiencing winds of Gale Force on the Beaufort scale. Gale warnings (and gale watches) allow mariners to take precautionary actions to ensure their safety at sea or to seek safe anchorage and ride out the storm on land. Though usually associated with deep low-pressure areas, winds strong enough to catalyze a gale warning can occur in other conditions too, including from anticyclones, or high-pressure systems, in the continental interior.

U.S. Usage

Maritime

In the United States, the National Weather Service issues gale warnings for marine areas (oceans, sounds, estuaries, and the Great Lakes) experiencing, or about to experience, winds within the range of 34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph) to 47 knots (87 km/h; 54 mph). In United States maritime warning flag systems, two red pennants indicate a gale warning; the use of one such flag denotes a small craft advisory.

The National Weather Service issues a storm warning for higher winds of 48 knots (89 km/h; 55 mph) to 63 knots (117 km/h; 72 mph) at sea. In the event of a tropical cyclone, however, a tropical storm warning replaces the gale warning or storm warning. The storm-warning maritime flag also replaces the gale-warning flag, regardless of the strength or weakness of the tropical storm.