Weather warning

A Weather warning generally refers to an alert issued by a meteorological agency to warn citizens of approaching dangerous weather. A weather watch, on the other hand, typically refers to an alert issued to indicate that conditions are favorable for the development of dangerous weather patterns, although the dangerous weather conditions themselves are not currently present.

In the United States, governmental weather warnings and watches are issued by the National Weather Service, which is itself a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NWS defines a watch as "the risk of a hazardous weather or hydrologic event [increasing] significantly, but its occurrence, location, and/or timing is still uncertain" and a warning as "hazardous weather or hydrologic event [that] is occurring, is imminent, or has a very high probability of occurring" . Additionally, the NWS breaks down weather warnings and watches based upon the specific type of hazardous weather. These warnings and watches include, but are not limited to, flooding, severe local storms, tropical cyclones, and winter storms. The Severe Weather Terminology article has much greater detail on NWS warnings.