Staying healthy in heat

Heat health alert system

The Department of Health has developed a heat health alert system to notify organisations, groups and general public about extreme heat or heatwave events that are likely to have a negative impact on people's health.  The heat health alert system operates annually between November to the end of March.

Receiving heat health alerts

Heat health alerts are available from the Department of Health email subscription service.  To subscribe to receive heat health alerts, and other emergency advice (such as thunderstorm asthma and cold weather alerts), go to the Department's subscription webpage.

Heat health thresholds

The Department monitors the Bureau of Meteorology’s 7-day forecast maximum and minimum temperatures.  When forecast average temperatures are predicted to reach or exceed the heat health temperature threshold the Department issues heat health alerts for the appropriate districts.

The heat health threshold is calculated by taking the average of the forecast daily maximum temperature and the forecast overnight temperature (which is the daily minimum for the following day). 

Communities in Loddon Shire are located in the Northern Country weather forecast district.  The heat health threshold for Northern Country is 32 degrees Celsius.

Click here(PDF, 2MB) for further information on weather forecast districts and heat health temperature thresholds.