From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdire warning/prediction/forecastdire warning/prediction/forecastWARNa warning about something terrible that will happen in the future Last night there were dire warnings of civil war. → dire
Examples from the Corpus
dire warning/prediction/forecast• He was walking in spite of all those specialists and their dire predictions.• That was the rift that grabbed headlines late in 1990, as a result of a dire forecast.• Take the current fascination with dire forecasts, for example.• The crisis has unsettled financial markets and brought dire predictions of revolution or civil war from some politicians.• The dire warnings of world shortages have not come to pass.• When a highly qualified professional makes such a dire prediction, one has to sit up and take notice.• The most dire forecasts say rising mercury on Earth could bring about both devastating floods and droughts. 