The Malaysian Insight

THE Meteorological Department will replace its colour-coded weather warning system to a written one as the former is hard to understand, said the science, technology and innovation minister.

Wilfred Madius Tangau, who is also Tuaran MP, told the Dewan Rakyat that the change was aimed at improving the weather alert system.

“The main step is to change the warning categories because at the moment, we use colour alerts – yellow, orange and red. We admit that the public doesn’t really understand this.

“The Meteorological Department will change the colour-coded warning to a written warning. Yellow will be changed to ‘alert’, orange to ‘bad’ and red to ‘dangerous’.”

He was responding to a supplementary question by Parit Sulong MP Noraini Ahmad, who asked about efforts taken by the government to disseminate early weather warnings nationwide.

The department currently issues weather warnings in three categories: yellow, orange and red.

Yellow is for weather conditions that do not pose an immediate threat to the population.

An orange alert means that those in the affected areas should prepare for anticipated bad weather conditions.

Red means there will be severe weather, and people are asked to move out of the danger zone.

Recently, Penang was hit by its worst floods in decades, in which seven people died. – November 16, 2017.