In the spirit of weather watches and warnings, the National Weather Service is testing a new alert system for dangerous heat conditions.
The HeatRisk tool is an “experimental color-numeric-based index that provides a forecast risk of heat-related impacts to occur over a 24-hour period,” according to the organization.
The Weather Service has a 5 point HeatRisk scale, with numbers and colors:
0 or Green: Little to no risk from expected heat.
1 or Yellow: Minor risk.
2 or Orange: Moderate risk.
3 or Red: Major health risk from hot weather.
4 or Magenta: Extreme conditions. This rating should be used rarely, the Weather Service said.
CHECK: What is the heat risk for Atlanta right now?
Credit: National Weather Service
Credit: National Weather Service
The Weather Service acknowledges that it gets hot in the summer, so this tool is beyond that. It attempts to flag conditions that are unusually hot for the time of year in your location. For example, will it be warmer than the highest recorded temperatures for a day or a week? The scale also factors in humidity, which can increase risk of health issues, or the presence of unusually warm overnight temperatures.
Hot weather tools you can use
To check conditions where you are today:
- The Heatrisk rating from the National Weather Service
- Heat and Health Tracker by location from the CDC
Return to AJC.com or the AJC app for important weather news and information
Learn more about the HeatRisk tool and check the current rating for Atlanta or Georgia
From the CDC: A resources page on preventing heat-related illness
About the HeatRisk tool:
How unusually above normal the temperatures are at your location (is it warmer than the top 5% of hottest days in the period of record for this date?)
The time of the year (for example, is this early season heat that you likely haven't become used to, typical mid-summer heat, or late season heat that you may have become more used to?)
The duration of unusual heat (for example, are temperatures overnight at levels that would lower heat stress, maintain it, or will unusually warm overnight low temperatures add to heat stress into the next day?)
If those temperatures are at levels that pose an elevated risk for heat complications, such as heat stress, based on peer-reviewed science and heat-health thresholds supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) national data sets.
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