Yellow, orange and red rainfall warnings
Three levels, set by how much rain falls in one hour. Yellow means watch it, orange means be ready to leave, red means leave.
Written for the Philippines. Dilaw, orange at pula ang tatlong antas ng babala sa ulan ng PAGASA.
The three levels
| Warning | PAGASA's name | Rain in one hour | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Heavy Rainfall | 7.5 to 15 mm | Flood is possible | Monitor the weather condition |
| Orange | Intense Rainfall | 15 to 30 mm | Flood is threatening | Alert for possible evacuation |
| Red | Torrential Rainfall | More than 30 mm | Serious flooding expected in low lying areas | Evacuation |
The wording in the last two columns is PAGASA's own. Their red row says evacuation, not consider evacuating.
Source: PAGASA, Weather Icons, the rainfall warning legend. Read 23 September 2026. The three thresholds, the hourly millimetre figures and the action beside each one are the words PAGASA uses in that table. The table names the levels Heavy, Intense and Torrential and never writes the colour names anywhere, so the colours here were read from the PAGASA warning icons themselves, named alert, warning and critical, which are yellow, orange and red in that order.
Why this is hard to look up
PAGASA's legend does not contain the words yellow, orange or red. It names the three levels Heavy, Intense and Torrential, and shows a coloured icon beside each one. The icon files are called alert, warning and critical.
So the question almost everybody actually asks, what does an orange rainfall warning mean, is not answered in those words on the page that defines it. That is why the results for it are mostly social media posts and a re-uploaded document. The colours on this page were taken from those three PAGASA icons, which are yellow, orange and red in that order.
- Yellow Heavy Rainfall
- Orange Intense Rainfall
- Red Torrential Rainfall
Source: PAGASA, Weather Icons, the rainfall warning legend. Read 23 September 2026.
A rainfall warning is not a wind signal
These three are about rain. The numbered signals from 1 to 5 that go up before a typhoon are about wind, they are a different scale issued for a different reason, and one can be raised without the other. Heavy rain arrives under a low signal often enough that treating them as one thing is how people get caught.
What to do when one is up
The action in the table is the short version. What to do before, during and after the flooding itself, including the landslide that the same rain can bring down on a slope above you, is on the flood guide.