You Will Never Hear Another Freezing Rain Advisory

The title of this post is correct, but there's a catch: Nobody has banned freezing rain. I guarantee we in the North Country will get some freezing rain this winter.

We will no longer get freezing rain advisories from the
National Weather Service this winter, but don't worry,
Mother Nature will still provide the freezing rain

It's just that the alert you will inevitably hear from the National Weather Service that such nasty weather is coming won't be a freezing rain advisory, but rather a winter weather advisory.

This is all part of an effort by the National Weather Service to simplify the weather alerts we get during the winter.

Among the changes:

Lake effect snow advisories and freezing rain advisories will all go under the umbrella of "winter weather advisory"

Lake effect snow watches and blizzard watches will all go under the header "winter storm watch."

Some areas near the great lakes will no longer get lake effect snow warnings and instead be alerted by a winter storm warning. 

You will still hear of ice storm warnings, blizzard warnings and winter storm warnings as we get into winter. Those won't really change. 

Since the National Weather Service has up until now used 120 or so different alerts, watches and warnings, they want to streamline, to make things less confusing to the public.  

Winter storms and just generally nasty winter weather often involves a wide variety of weather. One storm might contain a combination of freezing rain, freezing drizzle, snow, sleet, lake effect snow, blowing snow and wind chills. 

If you harp on one of the hazards, say through a freezing rain advisory, then the rain changes to snow, so the National Weather Service changes the freezing rain advisory to a winter weather advisory, then the snow becomes limited to near the lakes, so it changes again to a lake effect snow advisory, you can see how the public can get confused. 

So now, the National Weather Service will just issue a plain old winter weather advisory, and in the text of the advisory, they'll tell you specifically what type of miserable weather will greet you.

We'll see how this works. I get the need to simplify messages so people get it. I wonder if the changes will also confuse the public, at least initially. Still, I have to applaud any effort at clearing sending messages to the public when dangers winter weather looms.