How to Sign Up for Heat-Health Alerts

If you want to know when hot weather is likely to affect your health, register for the Heat-Health Alert service. Individuals can register to receive the alerts through an online form, and the alerts are then distributed by email to everyone who has registered once they are issued¹. You can also sign up on behalf of someone who does not have an email account or who finds it difficult to access information online³.

The service is provided by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in partnership with the Met Office, and it runs from June to September¹. The core alerting season is 1 June to 30 September each year⁴. Alerts are given a colour, yellow, amber or red, based on the combination of the impact the weather conditions could have and the likelihood of those impacts⁵.

Registration is quick and free, and it is the one step that turns a forecast into a warning that reaches you. This page covers how to register, when the season runs, what each colour asks you to do, who sends the alerts, and how to get local information alongside them.

Register for Heat-Health Alerts with the online form

The route in is a single online registration form. The Met Office says individuals can register to receive the alerts via an online form¹, and UKHSA's guidance says to make sure you are registered to receive the alerts directly by email by completing the registration form². Once you are on the list, Weather-Health Alerts are distributed via email to all those who have registered to receive them once they are issued⁷.

Registration is not only for individuals. Individuals and organisations that wish to receive the impact-based Heat-Health Alerts must register, and users can specify which regions they wish to receive alerts for⁸. That regional choice matters: hot weather does not arrive everywhere at once, and you can ask for the areas you actually live in, work in or care about.

If the person who most needs the alerts is not online, you can act for them. The Mayor of London's advice is that if you, or someone you care for, is at higher risk you can sign up for the UK Health Security Agency's Weather-Health Alert service, which will notify you by email if forecast temperatures are likely to have an impact on health, and you can also sign up on behalf of someone who does not have an email account or who finds it difficult to access information online³. Doing this for an older neighbour or relative is a small task with a real payoff.

A few practical points before you start:

• Complete the online registration form to receive the alerts directly by email⁷.
• Choose the regions you want, because you can specify them at registration⁸.
• Register again if you change address or email, so the alerts keep reaching you.

Alerts run from 1 June to 30 September

The Heat-Health Alert system has a defined season, and knowing it stops you wondering why nothing arrives in April or October. The Heat-Health Alert operates from 1 June to 30 September², and the core alerting season runs from 1 June to 30 September each year⁴. The Met Office describes the service as running from June to September, with extraordinary alerts issued outside this period if conditions are reached¹.

The season is not the same as the whole Weather-Health Alerting system. That system is made up of the Heat-Health Alerts and the Cold-Health Alerts⁹, so the same family of alerts covers summer and winter. During summer and winter, UKHSA and the Met Office monitor weather forecasts¹⁰. If you register once, you are in the right place for the heat season; the cold side is covered separately.

One point of confusion is worth clearing up. Some council pages give the end of the season as 15 September rather than 30 September¹¹. The official UKHSA and Met Office guidance gives 30 September², so treat the end of September as the close of the core season and check the dashboard if you are unsure whether an alert is in force.

Yellow, amber and red: what each colour asks you to do

The colour of an alert is not a weather forecast. It is a judgement about what the heat is likely to do to people. Alerts are given a colour, yellow, amber or red, based on the combination of the impact the weather conditions could have and the likelihood of those impacts⁵. The same three-colour scale is used across the heat and cold alerting systems¹².

The Met Office sets out what the yellow level means in practice. Yellow (response) alerts cover a range of situations: heat that is unlikely to impact most people but where vulnerable people are likely to struggle, or low forecast confidence with possible more significant impacts, and the alert may be upgraded as confidence improves¹. In other words, yellow is your prompt to check on the people who are most at risk, not a signal to change nothing.

The colours are shared with the Met Office's own heat warnings, which are also given as yellow, amber or red¹³. Since summer 2021, UKHSA and the Met Office have collaborated to ensure that the Heat-Health Alert and the extreme heat warnings are aligned and work together to communicate the expected impacts so that users act to minimise the potential impact⁸. That alignment is why you may see the same colour in two places at once.

What the colour asks of you is mostly about other people. The practical response to any alert is to know who is most at risk in your household and street, and to have a plan for keeping your home cool before the heat peaks. For the full explanation of each level, see Heat-Health Alerts: Yellow, Amber and Red Explained.

Who sends the alerts, and how they decide

The Heat-Health Alert service is provided by UKHSA in partnership with the Met Office¹. During the summer, UKHSA works with the Met Office to issue alerts alongside the weather forecast if the weather is so hot that it has the potential to affect people's health¹⁴. The two organisations monitor the weather forecasts and, where episodes of hot or cold weather are identified using predefined evidence-based considerations, carry out a joint dynamic risk assessment and issue the appropriate alert².

The triggers are temperature based but not temperature alone. The Met Office regional daytime and night-time maximum temperature forecasts are monitored, and when certain temperature thresholds are reached there is an assessment of potential impacts and likelihood¹. That is why two days at the same temperature can produce different alerts: the assessment weighs what the heat is likely to do, not just how hot it will be.

The service has changed hands and changed shape in recent years, which explains some of the older wording you may find online:

• In summer 2023 the Heat-Health Alerts moved to an impact-based system giving an indication of the impacts likely to be observed as a result of the temperatures¹.
• From 1 June 2024, Heat-Health Alerts and Heat-Health Planners have been issued by UKHSA in collaboration with the Met Office⁸.
• The service was previously issued by the Met Office and is now issued by UKHSA's new online alerting system, while remaining in association with the Met Office for weather forecast input¹⁵.

The alerts sit inside a wider framework. The Heat-Health Alerts and Cold-Health Alerts are part of the Weather-Health Alerting system operated by UKHSA, which underpins the Adverse Weather and Health Plan¹. If you want to understand how councils, the NHS and care services respond once an alert is issued, see The Adverse Weather and Health Plan: How Services Respond.

Check the dashboard and your region

Registering gets alerts to you, but the dashboard lets you look whenever you want. The UK Health Security Agency publishes current Weather-Health Alerts on its online dashboard¹⁶. It shows the position region by region: on 18 August 2026, for example, the South East page showed the alert type as Heat Health Alert and the warning level as no alert, last updated at 09:00am that morning¹⁷.

That example is worth keeping in mind. A dashboard showing no alert is not a fault; it means no alert is in force for that region at that time. The value of checking is that you see the current position for your own area rather than relying on a national headline.

The dashboard is also where the regional structure becomes visible. Because users can specify which regions they wish to receive alerts for when they register⁸, the emailed alerts and the dashboard should line up with the part of the country you chose. If you care for someone in another region, register for both.

Local alerts, council information and social media

The national alert is the backbone, but local information fills in the detail: which cool spaces are open, where water is available, what your council is doing. Many councils and local partnerships point residents to alerts and information for their area. Lancashire County Council, for example, advises signing up to receive alerts and information about risks in your area and following its #lancsalert tag on social media¹⁸.

Local Resilience Forums are another route. Some Local Resilience Forums offer a sign-up option for alerts to receive news and information about emergencies in your local area¹⁹. Community groups are encouraged to sign up to alerts and warnings covering their area, with a list of trusted sources of alerts on the Government's Prepare website²⁰. The Prepare campaign site is the official starting point for finding those sources²¹.

Beyond sign-up, the standard advice is to use several channels. Derbyshire County Council advises listening to alerts on the radio, TV and social media about keeping cool⁹. The Prepare campaign advises checking the weather forecasts and warnings, or downloading the Met Office Weather Forecast app where you can create alerts for your area, paying particular attention to any National Severe Weather Warnings or Heat Health Alerts covering your area, and acting on them²².

A sensible local set-up looks like this:

• The national Heat-Health Alert by email, for your region⁸.
• Your council's own alert sign-up or social media feed, where it offers one¹⁸.
• Your Local Resilience Forum's sign-up, if it has one¹⁹.
• Met Office weather warnings and app alerts for your area²².

Alerts outside England, and the names that changed

The Heat-Health Alert system is an England-only service. The Met Office describes the heat health alert as an England-only service considering the impact of prolonged extreme heat on public health, especially those with long-term health conditions⁶. Surrey County Council likewise describes the UKHSA as operating an annual Heat-Health alert system in England¹¹. Households in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should follow their own national public health advice and Met Office weather warnings for their area rather than expecting a Heat-Health Alert email.

The names attached to the service have changed, which can make older pages look out of date. The UK Health Security Agency is formerly known as Public Health England²³. Pages that still refer to Public Health England heat alerts are describing the same function under its former name; the current provider is UKHSA, in partnership with the Met Office¹.

The Met Office also runs its own warning service, which is separate from the Heat-Health Alert but aligned with it. Met Office warnings are given as yellow, amber or red¹³, and since summer 2021 the Heat-Health Alert and the extreme heat warnings have been aligned so that they communicate the same expected impacts⁸. If you are unsure which you are looking at, the Wiltshire and Swindon preparedness pages explain the difference between Weather-Health Alerts and severe weather warnings¹⁰.

For the wider picture of how hot weather is forecast and what counts as a heatwave, see What Counts as a Heatwave in the UK: Met Office Thresholds, and for the household view of the whole season, Heatwaves and Drought: A Household Guide.