GARDEN ROUTE | KAROO NEWS - How often do you come across news reports suggesting that the South African Weather Service (SAWS) has issued an Impact-Based Weather Warning of a certain level and a particular colour-coding?
What does it mean?
The Impact-Based Severe Weather Warning System was developed to warn the public of possible impacts that could occur because of hazardous weather. It marks a departure from communicating “what the weather will be” to “what the weather will do”.
A colour-coded and numbered risk matrix (pictured) is used to determine the warning level.
The colour-coding and the numbering are determined by combining the level of impact with the likelihood of that impact occurring.
For instance, a red level 10 Impact-Based Weather Warning denotes a high likelihood of a severe impact whereas a yellow level 3 Warning points to a very low likelihood of a significant impact. #BeWeatherSMART
The Warning could be for disruptive rain, damaging winds, damaging waves, severe thunderstorms, disruptive snow and so forth.
The idea is to warn the public of the looming danger as early as possible so that they can take precautions and ready themselves for such weather events with a view to saving lives and property.
Take heed of such warnings and cooperate with Disaster Management and emergency authorities.
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