Guidance

Weather-Health Alerting System

The alerting system provides an early warning when adverse temperatures are likely to impact on the health and wellbeing of the population.

The Weather-Health Alerting System is provided by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in partnership with the Met Office. It’s intended to provide early warning to the health and social care sector, the responder community, the voluntary and community sector and government departments when adverse temperatures are likely to impact on the health and wellbeing of the population. The Weather-Health Alerting System is made up of the Heat-Health Alerts (HHA) and the Cold-Health Alerts (CHA). The Weather-Health Alerting System underpins the Adverse Weather and Health Plan.

The core alerting season for the HHA runs from 1 June to 30 September, with the core alerting season for CHA running from 1 November to 31 March. Should a period of heat or cold occur that meets alerting criteria outside of the core alerting periods, an extraordinary alert will be issued.

A Weather-Health Alert System user guide has been published to help users understand how the information contained within the alerts can be used when coordinating the response to adverse temperatures and provide an overview of what each alert colour means in terms of expected impacts on health.

Register to receive Weather-Health Alerts

Weather-Health Alerts are distributed via email to all those who have registered to receive them once they are issued. If you would like to receive the alerts, please register below and share the link with anyone you feel should be receiving them.

Further information

UKHSA has developed a range of materials intended to provide support, advice and guidance on actions that can be taken during alerting periods, along with supporting evidence on why we need to plan for periods of adverse weather. These materials can be found below:


Updates to this page

Published 1 June 2023
Last updated 21 June 2024 + show all updates
  1. Changed links to 'Weather-Health Alerting System' and 'Weather-Health Alerting situation' to new dashboard.

  2. Corrected core alerting season dates for the Heat-Health Alerts (HHA) and the Cold-Health Alerts (CHA).

  3. First published.

Sign up for emails or print this page