The Bureau of Meteorology has reactivated its Heatwave Service to help communities prepare for severe weather conditions and has launched 20 new Regional Weather and Climate Guides especially for drought-affected farmers.
The Bureau’s Heatwave Service provides a series of forecast maps showing heatwave location and severity across Australia.
The service is activated in early spring each year and traditionally remains active well into autumn.
General Manager for Public Safety at the Bureau, Shoni Maguire said the potential for severe or extreme heatwaves would be an ever-present risk across the country in the coming months.
“We’ve already seen above average temperatures and fire weather conditions across parts of Australia so far this year,” Mr Maguire said.
“Heatwave conditions are among a number of hazards Australians face across the warmer months and 2019-20 will be no different.”
He said early preparation was critical, so it was important the community keep up-to-date with the latest weather conditions.
“Heatwaves are defined as three or more days in a row when both daytime and night-time temperatures are unusually high for a location,” Mr Maguire said.
“Any heatwave categorised as severe or extreme can be particularly challenging for vulnerable people, and the sustained heat can have flow-on impacts for infrastructure.”
The Heatwave Service provides a series of seven maps, each map showing heatwave location and severity for a three-day period and is available on the Bureau’s website.
Meanwhile, the Bureau’s first 20 Regional Weather and Climate Guides have been released in partnership with FarmLink and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CIRO).
They include rainfall and temperature trends, frost risk, when to expect the wet season, and the nature of local droughts, floods and heatwaves, helping farmers to make decisions such as when to plant crops, put fodder aside, lease land, build water storages or take out loans.
All guides will be released by the end of the year and made available through the National Farmer’s Federation FarmHub tool and the Climate Kelpie website.
The new Guides can be accessed at this PS News link.