Severe Weather Information Centre 3.0
A Core Component of the WMO Global
Multi-hazard Alert System (GMAS) Framework
Supporting UN Early Warnings for All Initiative

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) contributing to this Information Centre make no warranty, statement or representation, express or implied, with respect to the accuracy, availability, completeness or usefulness of the information, contained herein, and in so far as permitted by law, will not have any legal liability or responsibility (including liability for negligence) for any loss, damage, or injury (including death) which may result, whether directly or indirectly, from the supply of use of such information.

The designations employed in this website are in conformity with United Nations practice. The presentation of material therein does not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of WMO concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its borders. The depiction and use of boundaries, geographic names and related data shown on maps and included in lists, tables, documents, and databases on this website are not warranted to be error free nor do they necessarily imply official endorsement or acceptance by the WMO.

The information on Severe Weather Information Centre (SWIC) website is based on advisories issued by Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RMSCs), Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres (TCWCs), and official warnings issued by NMHSs for their respective countries or regions. The information is free for re-use by media or other websites. When doing so, it should be indicated that they are issued by the respective Tropical Cyclone RSMCs, TCWCs or NMHSs.

Official warnings in Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) format issued by NMHSs are incorporated in the SWIC. By March 2024 when the SWIC 3.0 was launched, official CAP warnings issued by more than 130 NMHSs are displayed on the SWIC 3.0 employing a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based map. If no warning is found on land on the SWIC map, it may be due to other reasons apart from no warning is in effect for that area. The reasons include but not limited to (i) warnings are issued but not made available in / not comply with CAP format; and (ii) CAP feeds published are not accessible. Users may enable the layers "CAP warnings under construction" and "CAP feeds not accessible" under Settings to acknowledge the situation.

Users must be mindful that not all sea areas are covered by CAP warnings in this SWIC 3.0, though CAP warnings on the sea are also provided by some NMHSs. Users may turn on the layer of "Satellite Image" under Settings to get hold on major weather systems on sea.

Owing to technical reasons, some CAP warnings cannot be displayed on the map for some countries or territories. In those cases, a warning symbol filled with colour with highest level of severity, i.e , , , or , will be displayed for the countries or territories on the map instead. Details of the CAP warnings with the highest level of severity will be shown by clicking on the warning symbol.

In CAP warnings, core elements including urgency, severity and certainty are provided to facilitate better user understanding and response. In addition, the ISO 22324 is an international standard to provide guidelines for colour codes to indicate severity of hazard in public warnings. The SWIC 3.0 website makes use of the ISO 22324 and WMO design guidelines to provide a visual effect on the map display to enable users to identify warnings with different level of severity quickly. In accordance with ISO 22324, WMO design guidelines and CAP standards, CAP warnings with severity of extreme, severe, moderate, and minor are coded in red, orange, yellow, and cyan respectively on the map display. Users should be mindful that colour of CAP warnings on the SWIC 3.0 map display is not directly related to the colour of warnings issued by some NMHSs.