Colour-Coded Warnings by the IMD

Recently, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a yellow weather warning for heavy rain and snowfall in Himachal Pradesh.

Yellow weather warning indicates severely bad weather spanning across several days.

Colour- Coded Weather Warning
- It is issued by the IMD whose objective is to alert people ahead of severe or hazardous weather which has the potential to cause damage, widespread disruption or danger to life.
- Warnings are updated daily.
- The IMD uses 4 colour codes are:
  - Green (All is well): No advisory is issued.
  - Yellow (Be Aware): Yellow indicates severely bad weather spanning across several days. It also suggests that the weather could change for the worse, causing disruption in day-to-day activities.
  - Orange/Amber (Be prepared): The orange alert is issued as a warning of extremely bad weather with the potential of disruption in commute with road and rail closures, and interruption of power supply.
  - Red (Take Action): When the extremely bad weather conditions are certainly going to disrupt travel and power and have significant risk to life, the red alert is issued.
These alerts are universal in nature and are also issued during floods, depending on the amount of water rising above land/in a river as a result of torrential rainfall.
- For instance, when the water in a river is ‘above normal’ level, or between the ‘warning’ and ‘danger’ levels, a yellow alert is issued.

India Meteorological Department

IMD was established in 1875.
It is an agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India.
It is the principal agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology