Step aside, color red, there's a new, scariest hue in town. This Earth Day, the National Weather Service and the Centers for Disease Control announced a new, color-coded heat risk system. And the worst case scenario is represented by magenta.
The AP reports that this terrifying rainbow begins with green (little to no risk) up through yellow, orange, red and now, the new Big Bad, magenta. The new system uses localized weather, climate and medical data, so a Massachusetts red, for example, might be an Arizona yellow.
No matter how you paint it, our overheating planet is a danger to us all.
"Heat is a threat to our health," CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said. She said last year more than 120,000 people were taken to the emergency room in the United States because of heat. Last year was one of the deadliest years in decades for heat, according to government records.
National Weather Service director Ken Graham explained the reason for a simple color-coding system of a complex problem.
"This is a way to simplify that," Graham said. "You've got to be able to simplify the stuff so that people actually want to look at it first of all and most importantly understand it."
Color me terrified.
Previously: Why magenta doesn`t appear in the rainbow
