A Winter Storm Warning (SAME code: WSW) is a statement made by the National Weather Service of the United States which means a winter storm is occurring or is about to occur in the area, usually within 36 hours. Generally, a Winter Storm Warning is issued if at least 4 inches (10 cm) to 7 inches (18 cm) or more of snow or 3 inches (7.6 cm) or more of snow with a large accumulation of ice is forecast. In the Southern United States, where severe winter weather is much less common and any snow is a more significant event, warning criteria are lower, as low as 2 inches (5.1 cm) in the southernmost areas. A warning can also be issued during high impact events of lesser amounts, usually early or very late in the season when trees have leaves and damage can result.
Usually, a large accumulation of ice alone with no snow will result in an Ice Storm Warning, or in the case of light freezing rain, a Winter Weather Advisory, a Freezing Rain Advisory, or Drizzle Advisory.
A similar warning is issued by Environment Canada's Meteorological Service of Canada from their offices.
Prior to the 2008-09 winter storm season, there was the Heavy Snow Warning, specific for when only a heavy amount of snow was expected in the warned area. The Winter Storm Warning for Heavy Snow has since replaced it.
Read more about Winter Storm Warning: Types
Famous quotes containing the words winter, storm and/or warning:
“Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o’-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have not the motive to prepare ourselves for a “life-work” of teaching, of social work—we know that we would lay it down with hallelujah in the height of our success, to make a home for the right man. And all the time in the background of our consciousness rings the warning that perhaps the right man will never come. A great love is given to very few. Perhaps this make-shift time filler of a job is our life work after all.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)