A winter weather advisory (originally identified as a Traveler's Advisory until the 2002-03 climatological winter when officially renamed, and informally as such by some local television stations thereafter) is a hazardous weather statement issued by local Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) of the National Weather Service in the United States when one or more types of winter precipitation—snow, rain and snow mixed, freezing rain, sleet, graupel, etc.—presenting a hazard, but not expected to produce accumulations meeting storm warning criteria (usually below four inches (10 cm)), are forecast within 36 hours of the expected onset of precipitation or are occurring in the advisory's coverage area.
For example, any measurable snow will constitute the advisory in Florida, while forecast accumulations of three to five inches (7.6 to 12.7 cm) will merit issuance in New England.
Until the 2007-08 winter storm season, the product was originally designated to indicate hazardous travel conditions within the advisory area, while standalone advisories based on the expected/ongoing precipitation type (usually encompassing the same areas) were issued to indicate hazards to life, property and commerce through the duration of the winter weather event forecast to occur within a given region.
Beginning in the winter of 2008-09, the National Weather Service restructured the Winter Weather Advisory into a general purpose product, expanding its application to supersede and utilizing the respective criterial definitions previously applied to four deprecated precipitation-specific products: Additional variants of the product were added by the National Weather Service on October 2, 2017 (implemented for the 2017-18 winter storm season), superseding two other precipitation-based advisory products:[2] The generic Winter Weather Advisory terminology may be used on its own, typically to indicate moderate amounts of snow, sleet and freezing rain are expected in the alert area.
In Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada issues the similar Winter Weather Travel Advisory through regional Meteorological Service offices based in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Dartmouth for specified municipalities and census subdivisions.