early warning
Heads-up before trouble
Early warning refers to advance notice of danger or trouble, allowing time to prepare or respond.
The phrase appears most often in military and emergency contexts: an early warning system detects incoming missiles or approaching storms.
Figuratively, any sign of problems ahead serves as an early warning: The quarterly losses were an early warning of the company's collapse.
- radarRadio-wave object detection
- weather radarPrecipitation locating instrument
- harbingerOne who foreshadows
- premonitionAdvance sense of future events
- disaster preparednessPlanning for potential crises
advance notice · alert · air raid siren · biosensors · smoke detector · canary in the coal mine · foreshadowing · satellite imagery · precursor · writing on the wall · prelude · tripwire · siren · alarm bell · heads-up · danger · contingency planning · sentinel
- seismologyearthquake, earthquakes, seismograph, seismicity, seismometer
- countermeasurescountermeasures, chaff, flares, decoys, jammers
- earthquake engineeringearthquake engineering, seismic waves, liquefaction, seismic risk, dampers
- emergency preparednessemergency kit, evacuation plan, emergency plan, emergency alerts, emergency supplies
- environmentalismecology, conservationism, recycling bins, campaigner, environmentalism
- humanitarian aidaid, aid organizations, aid workers, disaster relief, aid agencies
early warninglate notice
Insufficient advance notification
after the fact · hindsight · too little too late · post-mortem · postmortem
early warningdamage control
Limiting further harm
crisis response · emergency response · triage · remediation · mop-up