If you follow severe weather forecasts, you’ve probably seen the colorful maps issued by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center. These Convective Outlooks highlight where severe thunderstorms are possible across the United States days in advance.
Starting March 3, 2026, the center rolled out an important update that adds more detail about how intense severe storms could become.
The familiar outlook categories — Marginal, Slight, Enhanced, Moderate, and High Risk — are staying the same. But meteorologists and the public will now get extra information about the potential strength of severe weather, including tornadoes, hail, and damaging winds.
Here’s what changed.
More Detail About Storm Intensity
One of the biggest updates is the addition of “Conditional Intensity Groups,” or CIGs.
These new indicators help answer a question that the previous outlooks didn’t clearly show:
If severe weather does happen, how intense could it be?
Instead of only showing the probability of severe storms, outlook graphics will now include three levels of potential intensity for tornadoes and damaging winds and two levels for hail.
The three tornado and wind intensity levels include:
- CIG1: Lower-end significant severe potential
- CIG2: Moderate intensity potential
- CIG3: Higher-end severe potential
These intensity levels don’t mean severe weather will definitely occur. Instead, they describe the expected strength if storms develop.
The Science Behind the New System
The new intensity groups were developed using 20 years of severe weather data collected from tornado events and environmental conditions.
That data helped researchers determine how often stronger tornadoes occur under different atmospheric setups.
For example:
- In areas with no intensity designation, roughly 7% of tornadoes were EF2 or stronger.
- In CIG1 areas, that number increases to about 20%.
- In CIG2, roughly 30% of tornadoes reach EF2 strength.
- In CIG3, nearly 40% of tornadoes are EF2 or stronger.
Higher-end tornadoes also become more common as intensity levels increase, which helps forecasters better communicate potential impacts.
New Wind Probabilities Added
Another notable change is the addition of higher damaging wind probabilities.
Previously, wind probabilities topped out lower, but the updated outlooks now include 75% and 90% wind probabilities. This helps highlight extreme wind events, such as powerful derecho-producing storms.
What’s Not Changing
Despite the new information being added, the main severe weather risk categories remain the same:
- Marginal Risk
- Slight Risk
- Enhanced Risk
- Moderate Risk
- High Risk
The categories will still appear with roughly the same frequency as in previous years, meaning a Moderate or High Risk will remain relatively rare.
The main difference is that forecasters can now better communicate the potential severity within those categories.
Why This Matters for Colorado
Colorado doesn’t experience tornado outbreaks as often as the Great Plains farther east, but severe thunderstorms are still common during the warmer months.
Along the Front Range and eastern plains, storms can produce:
- Large hail
- Damaging winds
- Isolated tornadoes
In fact, eastern Colorado is part of “Hail Alley,” one of the most active hail-producing regions in the country.
The new outlook changes could help forecasters better highlight when storms may be capable of producing particularly intense hazards, even if the overall risk category stays the same.
For example, a Slight Risk day with a higher intensity group could signal storms capable of producing very large hail or stronger tornadoes.
A Small Change That Adds Big Clarity
The update from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center doesn’t drastically change how outlooks look at first glance. But the added intensity information gives meteorologists, emergency managers, and the public a clearer picture of potential storm impacts.
As severe weather season ramps up across the Plains and very soon here in Colorado, these updates should help provide better insight into not just where storms could form — but how powerful they might be.
For more information visit the Storm Prediction Center