What to know
- The new system, launched Wednesday, assigns yellow, orange and red alerts based on the severity, rarity and expected impact of upcoming weather events.
- Yellow signals common, lower-impact events; orange is for less frequent, higher-impact conditions; and red is reserved for rare, severe events that may last several days.
- A gray category will continue to mark special weather statements, which fall outside the main alert spectrum.
- ECCC says the shift toward impact-based alerts aligns Canada with global standards and aims to help people interpret risk, plan ahead and stay safe during extreme weather.
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has launched new colour-coded weather alerts to help Canadians feel prepared for weather events.
Canadians have just gained another tool to help navigate the weather, just in time for winter. A new ECCC system has just come into effect this Wednesday afternoon, and will offer different coloured alerts for each forecasted weather event. Here’s how the new system works, and how you can use it to plan ahead.
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ECCC Warning Preparedness Meteorologist Jesse Wagar tells Now Toronto that the system will indicate the risk level associated with each event, including potential impact and duration:
- Yellow alerts will be used for most common events, with moderate risks, shorter durations, and more localized impact;
- Orange alerts will be issued for less common events, which are considered to have major impacts, and could be widespread for a few days;
- Red alerts will be used for events with rare, serious impacts, and that have the potential to be prolonged for several days.
“The only other colour that you will be able to see on our alerting web page is gray. So, gray is technically not part of the weather alerting spectrum, but we still have the ability to issue special weather statements, and those will be gray,” Wagar added.
The expert says the new alerts are part of an ongoing push for modernizing the ECCC’s Public Weather Alerting Program, which will include other changes through the next several years.
This approach aims to align the Canadian alerting system with best practices worldwide, including those promoted by the World Meteorological Organization, which are now shifting towards impact-based resources.
“[This] shift [is] sort of to what the weather will do, and not only what the weather will be. So it is a global shift, particularly for those meteorological services that are part of the World Meteorological Organization. So, that is the impetus behind the change to our new colour-coded [system],” Wagar said.
The ECCC hopes that the new system will be useful for Canadians to interpret forecasts, understand the risks of weather events, and anticipate any actions they need to take to stay safe.
“In our previous system we would issue an alert for a certain threshold of criteria. So, maybe it’s 10 centimetres of snow, or maybe it’s 90-km/h wind gusts, that’s what the weather will be. Now, with these colour-coded weather alerts, we can include this risk assessment, the impacts of that weather. So, that’s what the weather will do,” she said.
