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Yellow, amber, red — likelihood crossed with impact, not severity alone.
Also known as: Yellow warning, Amber weather warning, Coloured weather warning
The colour is not a measure of how bad the weather is. It is a judgement combining how likely the weather is with how much harm it would do, which is why the same forecast can be yellow in one county and amber in the next.
A three-level warning scheme — yellow, amber, red — issued by the Met Office, in which the colour is set by combining the likelihood of the weather occurring with the impact it would have.
United Kingdom · Contexts: Public information
Because impact is part of the judgement, the same weather can carry different colours in different places: a forecast that would be disruptive in a city and unremarkable on open moorland is warned differently.
The colour is not a measurement of the weather. Two areas under different colours may be forecast the same rainfall.
National schemes differ. The American service uses named products — watch, advisory, warning — where a watch means conditions are favourable and a warning means the event is occurring or imminent, which is a different axis entirely.
United States
A coloured region on a map, or a coloured triangular badge containing a weather pictogram, in yellow, orange or red.