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If you receive, or are interested in receiving Weather and Environmental Alerts from WorkSafe Guardian and have questions, you’ll find all the answers here.
WorkSafe Guardian has partnered with Early Warning Network (EWN) to offer Weather and Environmental Alerts!
Weather & Environmental Alerts offer essential SMS and Email notifications to keep you and your team updated on potentially hazardous weather conditions or environmental threats that may pose risks to their safety.
Threat levels are applied to alerts to indicate the severity of a threat at a glance.
Extreme threats where damage or destruction to property is likely, along with risk to personal safety.
Severe threats which may pose a threat to property or personal safety.
Very High threats which may present a risk.
Alerts sent by EWN are NOT automated – their alert managers check all content and filter out duplicate warnings.
Alerts may be sent at any time of the day or night. However, they do try to limit alerts sent between the hours of 10pm and 6am unless it is a serious situation. Severe Weather Warnings issued by the BoM during late evening or pre-dawn may be delayed until morning if there is a long lead-in time before the severe weather is expected.
Threats from severe thunderstorms include: Large (or possibly giant) hailstones, Heavy Rainfall (that may lead to flash flooding), Damaging winds, Destructive winds or Tornadoes. Severe thunderstorms represent the most common threat to property and the community throughout the year and are the main type of alert sent by WSG. Alerts are issued via Email and SMS.
The aim of our service is to deliver a timely alert when a severe thunderstorm is near or approaching your registered address. A constant watch is kept on BoM warnings, radar and our observation network to achieve this. However, thunderstorm weather is ever-changing and it is not possible to cover all scenarios. Radar images or warning products can be late, and thunderstorms can and do form and dissipate very quickly at times. It is important to accept that it is almost impossible to alert everyone on time during thunderstorm weather. Additionally, many adjacent areas may get an alert but not experience a thunderstorm.
Often the BoM warnings are not issued until some severe weather has already occurred or been observed. This is quite often the case for heavy rain warnings. Keep in mind creeks and streams may continue to rise and roads become cut after the heavy rain has eased or even stopped.
Intense low pressure systems and troughs (elongated areas of low pressure) may lead to warnings for phenomena such as:
Hazardous Winds, Damaging Winds and Heavy Rain, Heavy Rain and Flash Flooding, Localised Damaging Winds, Destructive Winds, Heavy Rain, Heavy Rain and Possible Flooding, Blizzard Conditions
WSG will issue Email and SMS alerts for these events. There is often a lengthy lead-in time before any severe weather occurs. This does provide plenty of time to prepare, though it also means some events may fail to actually become as severe as forecast due to the weather patterns being less intense or focusing into another region.
Email and SMS alerts will be issued for Flood Watches.
Alerts will only be sent by WSG for Flood Warnings as the event unfolds if there is an arrangement with a client or local government area. The community is often very aware of areas prone to flooding and are advised to monitor the Bureau of Meteorology’s flood pages and warnings page once they receive the flood watch or severe weather warning about heavy rainfall. Alternatively listen to local radio. Regularly updated river height and rainfall data is available that does not suit the alerting process.
Email and SMS Alerts will be issued for tropical cyclone watches and warnings. WSG does not send every tropical cyclone advice update – only initial warnings and when the situation escalates. For example, when a category 1 cyclone intensifies to category 2. The local community will know the risks and are advised to monitor the Bureau of Meteorology’s warnings webpage directly once they receive an alert.
Alerts will be issued via Email and SMS for tsunami threats.
Alerts will be sent via Email and SMS for bushfire Watch and Act and Emergency warnings. This information is sourced from bushfire responders in each state. The timeliness of bushfire alerts is dependent on what is made public by those agencies. WSG only issues the first Watch & Act and/or the first Emergency Warning for an event – updated information should then be sourced from your state agency.
If you or your organisation are interested in receiving these Weather & Environmental Alerts from WSG, please contact us so that we can walk you through the process to sign up.
Additional costs will apply.
Currently, the Weather & Environmental Alerts cover the following events:
Please refer to Threat Levels for full details in regard to what threat levels are applied to alerts.
Typically yes, though an email-only severe thunderstorm forecast may be issued for days when widespread severe thunderstorm activity is expected but is yet to develop. Email and SMS Alerts will be sent if warnings are issued by the BoM.
Yahoo and Microsoft branded (Hotmail, Outlook) free email services continue to delay a lot of our email alerts. Unfortunately, it is beyond WSG’s control to address this delay. Members with Yahoo or Hotmail email addresses should rely on our SMS alerts, or update your email address to another such as Gmail or your ISP.
Possible reasons for this include:
Please contact our Support team and we’ll investigate.
No. Emergency Alert is a federal government funded system that is used to send out SMS and Landline alerts in extreme situations such as bushfire emergencies and major flooding. These messages often contain evacuation or specific advice for communities. WSG does not issue these alerts.
If you still have a question regarding the WorkSafe Guardian system contact WSG’s local Customer Support team for further assistance.
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