The National Weather Service (NWS) is simplifying and renaming its heat alerts ahead of the summer to make understanding of watches and warnings easier.
Excessive Heat Watches will be renamed to Extreme Heat Watches.
Excessive Heat Warnings will be renamed to Extreme Heat Warnings.
No changes will be made to the Heat Advisory.
NWS believes that the name change from ‘excessive’ to ‘extreme’ will improve communication and messaging that hazardous heat is dangerous.
This name change also aligns the terminology with Extreme Cold Watches and Warnings, which were implemented before this winter.
These changes are already in effect, so you can expect to see them this summer.
It’s part of the National Weather Service’s Hazard Simplification Project.
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Reid Lybarger - Digital Weather Producer
Reid Lybarger is a Digital Weather Producer for Spectrum News. He graduated from Florida State University in 2015 with a Bachelor's of Science in Meteorology. He began his career in local TV news working across Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida for 7 years prior to joining Spectrum in 2022. He's excited for the opportunity to continue to inform the public about the latest weather news with Spectrum.
