Oooooh ...

[blamebrampton]

There is a catastrophic fire danger alert in place for parts of South Australia tomorrow. It's the first outing for the new fire warning, which is explained in the PSAs along the lines of 'Leave immediately, or you may die.'. It will be 39 degrees C, !00F, which is part of a month of record heatwave conditions for the state. It's still SPRING. Summer looks horribly grim.

Comments

[meredyth-13.livejournal.com]

I suspect that out of sheer organisational paranoia, the Catastrophic warning will get overused until it has no more real impact than the old Extreme. The conditions earlier this year here in Vic were truly exceptional - as were the conditions in Canberra in 2003 (why do I always end up in the wrong place at the wrong time?). Will be interesting to see whether the authorities can keep that in mind when trying to be seen to be doing the right thing. People have been ignoring the Extreme warning for long enough, won't take them long to do the same with the new category if it's used and things aren't as bad as predicted. You can't win either way with society.

[emerald-dragon8.livejournal.com]

Were you in Canberra in 2003? :( I had just moved away a month or so before, I was so worried about everyone I'd left!

I definitely agree with you about the Catastrophic warning. I'm hoping they can work out how to use it properly to really emphasise when we do have those extreme exceptional conditions.