Particuarly Dangerous Situation.
For example, from today, via Jeff Masters:
A dangerous day in Chicago
Most of Illinois, including Chicago, has been placed under a special "PDS" Tornado Watch: a "Particularly Dangerous Situation." Severe thunderstorms spawning tornado warnings have already erupted over Southern Wisconsin and Western Illinois as of 10:15 am CST. Severe thunderstorms are likely to sweep through Chicago in the early afternoon during today's Ravens – Bears game, which starts at noon CST. According to NBC 5 in Chicago, loose objects are being removed from the stadium in anticipation of high winds, and officials are prepared to evacuate fans, if necessary.
The Wikipedia entry suggests that this is a new phrase. The National Weather Service states:
PDS watches are issued, when in the opinion of the forecaster, the likelihood of significant events is boosted by very volatile atmospheric conditions. Usually this decision is based on a number of atmospheric clues and parameters, so the decision to issue a PDS watch is subjective. There is no hard threshold or criteria. In high risk outlooks PDS watches are issued most often.
Could use of this word serve as a metric for the extreme weather of this century?
Regardless, here's such a story from the NY Times today, which is a lot tougher to take than a new word:
Severe storms moved through the Midwest on Sunday, leveling towns, killing at least five people in Illinois and injuring dozens more, and causing thousands of power failures across the region.
Officials warned of a fast-moving, deadly storm system on Sunday morning and issued tornado watches throughout the day for wide areas of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. By the time the storm had passed on Sunday evening, tornadoes — scores of them, according to the National Weather Service — had left paths of destruction.
Kinda reminds me of another set of post-storm pictures recently.
Kit Stolz 