In an effort to inform viewers, the National Weather Service would like to take a moment to explain the definition of specific weather warnings and events.

Winter Weather Advisory – Cold rain mixing with hours of undeserved news footage. Roads will be damp and covered by video cameras. School children will first get excited and then disappointed. That said, you should still buy bread in a frenzy.

Winter Storm Watch – Something stirs in the distance. What is it? What’s out there? How can you predict chaos? We can’t yet make out what our doom shall be: Snow? Ice? Falcons? Nothing at all? Gather your loved ones and huddle by the fire. Anything may occur. Our science has failed us. We know not our devil.

Winter Storm Warning – There will be snow! Everything shuts down for at least twelve hours. Snow day! You will have so much free time! You’ve been waiting for a good snow day all winter. The day is filled with possibilities! Buy bread, milk, eggs, paint for the living room, nine jigsaw puzzles, a closet organizer, a book on writing your own screenplay, paint for the kitchen, a grown-up coloring book and 1,000 colored pencils, a book on knitting, yarn, knitting needles, a cookbook, a bread maker, putty so you can finally fix that hole in the hallway, hallway paint, 10 frames for pictures you’ve been meaning to hang, a tool belt, book about meditation for beginners, book about history, seven very complicated board games still sealed in their boxes, all kinds of books, miner’s helmet and pickax (you’re finally going to dig that mine you’ve been talking about!), book on making your own shoes, another coloring book, a computer program for scanning old family photos, and one more book! [After making necessary preparations for a snow day, spend the entire day watching NetFlix instead of doing anything]

Winter Weather Ahoy – The ground will get a dusting of snow. Fire up the Instagram machine of your choice and prepare to take a minimum of 25 pictures of snow — taking less only angers the storm.

Winter Storm Ahoy – The snow is more significant and there is a faint metallic smell in the air accompanied by a low, sustained hum. It’s best to not think of it or its origins.

Wintry Mix – Snow, ice, freezing rain. Buy bread, milk, eggs and wine — enough to last you one entire hour.

Wintry Max – Snow, ice, freezing rain, hail, with possible pockets of a knowing fog filled with indescribable polar nightmares.

Winter Storm Looky-Look — We tell you to look out the window. Keep looking. It’ll happen…soon.

Winter Weather Alert – This is nonsense talk we desperately use to lure you away from your phone long enough for us to report normal weather activity and then shove a commercial for Toyotathon down your eye-holes. (See also, “Breaking News.”)

Winter Wink – Mother Nature gives us enough snow for you to call out of work for the day — but we all know you could have driven to work. It’s okay. No need to over explain. We get it. Your neighborhood doesn’t get plowed well, and your kids were off from school, and your driveway was a sheet of ice, and your doctor says you shouldn’t shovel, and you can work from home, and you promise to work very hard. It’s okay. Really. [Wink]

Winter Weather Caveat – Nothing will happen, but we will give you enough information to have a full and robust conversation with a coworker or acquaintance. (e.g. “I heard on the news that there’s a storm coming. It’s 78-miles away. It will miss us entirely, but had it affected our area, we could have seen snowfall totals nearing 16-inches. Can’t even imagine.”)

Winter Weather “America’s Vote” — You get to pick! Use your phone or tablet device and vote for the amount of snow we’ll see by daybreak. The most votes wins. Text messaging and data rates apply. Not valid in all states. If you have a gambling problem, please contact 1-800-Gambling.

Winter Storm Siren — We will tell you that all is lost and soon the planet will be covered in an icy shell that won’t hatch until well beyond April. We will tell you to buy bread and milk. We will tell you to stay off roadways. We will tell you that God has turned his back on us. We will tell you to kill your children so they will not know the frozen horror that awaits the survivors. And then you will receive a total of 3-inches of powdery snow. And we will not apologize. Because we will never apologize!

Wintry Smorgasbord — It’s going to rain, snow, sleet and be 100% sunny and dry all at the same time.

Winter Vortex – We don’t know what this means. It’s fun to say, though. We named the office dog Vortex. He’s the best!

Wind Forewarning — The wind will be terrible. If you attempt to fly a kite, you will be swept off your feet and flung into altitudes where gravity gives up. You will be stuck floating in space with all the misguided and lost hot air balloons and long-forgotten astronaut corpses.

Winter Weather A-Go-Go — No weather report. We’re all going sledding right now before y’all mess up the sledding hill with your dumb, muddy feet. Later haters!

Winter Storm Mayday – The cold fist of space punches into our atmosphere bringing with it temperatures reaching Absolute Zero on the Kelvin Scale. All atoms stop. Our only hope — miracles. Buy bread and milk, enough to last a generation, and house it high in the trees, as near the sun as possible. This is not food for you — you are already gone — but for the future children of Earth…those from planets beyond our eyes and minds. They will carry the torch of humanity. The will tell our story. We give them bread, they give us…a future.