Environment and Climate Change Canada (formerly known as Environment Canada in 2015) is changing how it issues weather alerts, introducing a colour-coded system meant to make warnings easier to understand at a glance, it announced on Wednesday.
The federal agency will now label alerts as yellow, orange, or red, depending on how serious the expected weather is. Yellow signals hazardous conditions that might cause minor disruptions. Orange points to more severe weather that could cause major issues over a wider area. Red is reserved for extreme and potentially life-threatening events, the type of storms that can cause widespread damage and long-lasting impacts.
Meteorologists will use a new internal system that mixes forecast models, real-time weather data, and expected impacts on people and infrastructure. The goal is to shift from simply describing the weather to better explaining what it will actually do.
Over the next year, the federal weather service plans to roll out more changes, including clearer alerts and more context in daily forecasts.
Canadians can check the new alerts on the WeatherCAN iOS or Android app and online at canada.ca/weather. In order to enable the new colours, you need to go to the WeatherCAN app settings, then head over to ‘notifications’. Next, select ‘alerts’ and enable the toggle for ‘colour change’.
Under the Predicting Weather and Environmental Conditions program, ECCC has a planned budget of about $347.7 million for the 2025–2026 fiscal year. This funds all weather forecasting, observations, warnings, and related tech, including app updates for WeatherCAN.
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