Minnesota Could See This New Type Of Weather Alert A Lot In The Coming Days

As Minnesota gets hit by the coldest weather of the winter so far, you might be wondering why, even with brutally cold wind chills, we haven't seen any wind chill advisories or warnings.

In short, the days of wind chill advisories, watches, and warnings are gone. It certainly isn't because it doesn't get that cold anymore. I mean, have you been outside?!

The real reason is because of a change the National Weather Service made a pretty big change a little over a year ago, but it might have gone unnoticed by you because we didn't see a ton of cold weather last winter.

The change, which I shared details about toward the end of 2024, came out of the National Weather Service's desire to streamline and simplify the alerts they share with the public.

READ MORE: Little-Known Areas Of Danger To Look Out For On Minnesota's Frozen Lakes

Spending winters in Minnesota, you can see downright cold air temperatures, which can be made worse by a breeze, creating wind chills. Up until last winter, Minnesotans could expect to get wind chill advisories, wind chill watches, and wind chill warnings, and other cold-weather alerts as part of the slate of winter-related weather alerts during the coldest periods of winter.

While most savvy Minnesotans know (at least generally) what a wind chill is, visitors to the state might not. Even some lifelong Minnesotans might not fully grasp what the impacts of wind chills are. Add on the fact that there were some alerts for cold that didn't include wind chills, and things can get confusing in a hurry to try to follow.

To make things clearer for everyone, the National Weather Service felt it best to get away from the "weather jargony" terms and simplify alerts for people when it will get dangerously cold.

Enter the new types of weather alerts announced at the end of 2024, one of which you may have seen already on your phone this week.

Essentially replacing what used to be the wind chill advisory is now the cold weather advisory. While it is the lowest of the three new types of cold weather alerts, a cold weather advisory means that cold conditions will be hazardous.

The other two new alerts are for the most severe cold conditions Minnesota could see.

An extreme cold watch is to alert the public that dangerously cold air temperatures or wind chills are possible, but it is not yet happening, or not yet certain that it will happen.

An extreme cold warning is issued when dangerously cold air temperatures or wind chills are happening, or are about to arrive soon.

To be clear, Minnesota has seen an extreme cold warning issued, happening almost exactly a year ago. But these alerts are still pretty new, so you might not even remember them having been used at all since being unveiled just over a year ago.

With temperatures expected to get even colder by the end of this week, it is likely we'll see more cold-weather alerts in the days ahead. Be alert, take extra precautions if/when you need to go outside, and stay warm!