|Title||The Heatwaves of the 2013/14 Australian Summer Conference Paper 2014|
|Publication Type||Conference Paper|
|Year of Publication||2015|
|Authors||Fawcett, RJB, Nairn, J|
|Conference Name||Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and AFAC Wellington Conference 2014|
Heatwaves represent a significant natural hazard in Australia, arguably more hazardous to life than bushfires, tropical cyclones and floods. In the 2008/2009 summer, for example, many more lives were lost to heatwaves than to that summer’s bushfires which were among the worst in the history of the Australian nation. Yet for many years, these other forms of natural disaster have received much greater public attention than heatwaves. This might be changing in Australia however, as health and emergency services increasingly use weather forecast information to become proactive in providing advice to the community on how to mitigate the effects of heatwaves. Significant community engagement took place during the 2013/2014 Australian summer, a summer which generated some significant heatwaves, comparable to those of 2009, 2004, 1939 and 1908.