Severe Weather Awareness Week: NOAA Radio’s

Continuing with this Alabama’s Severe Weather Awareness week, we have now reached the last official day which is dedicated to NOAA radios. The last four days we covered Tornado’s, Severe Thunderstorms, Lightning & Flooding which included which alerts are issued by NOAA/NWS & what they mean.

In times of old, one had to rely on AM/FM radios broadcasting the watch or warning, having your TV on at the time, or hopefully hearing the sirens. The first versions of specialized warning radio systems was dedicated to aviation & shipping. For an interesting look at some of the history, here is an interesting look at the system in Chicago. Now though, you can count on being able to get warnings almost everywhere in the US & Canada.

Standard Radio Based Options:

This picture shows three of the most common options available. The one on the right is one of the most typical types which is or should be in every home. This one plugs in & only receives Public Alerts (see logo top left) and can wake almost everyone up from a sound sleep… The “Public Alert” product mark is used to identify radio receivers capable of automatically activating and alerting consumers when emergency messages are broadcast by the National Weather Service. This mark indicates that products are compliant with CEA-2009-B (ANSI). (More Info on specifics)

The two on the left actually came in a pack to help consumers put together the Red Crosses recommended disaster preparation kit (thus the logo). Both of these are not designed like the ones certified with the Public Alert features but are instead designed for camping, or when the power maybe out after an incident. Since they are designed for when the power is out & maybe out for several days, they have a crank handle to help power if the batteries die and an integrated LED light. Besides the ability to not only listen to the NOAA alerts one can also switch over to the radio for updates.

I originally bought this pack in this case as I liked the ability to have the top one left at my house, and being able to have the smaller FR160 version for when I was in the field working. The top one I have yet to use, while the smaller one has come in handy a few times for the 24×7 weather updates & alerts when it appears that the weather is changing. The reason this works so well is it picks up the alert system around you & requires no programming, just flipping the switch to get the best reception.

Going back to the “Public Alert” versions, these generally do require some programming. Fortunately they are not too difficult and many locations (TV Stations, EMA offices, Fire Departments, etc…) will generally be glad to help you out in case you might be technically challenged. One of the nice features on many of these is you can actually turn off certain alerts that may not apply to you. One quick example of this is Flood Warnings which don’t apply to me as I live on top of a hill & not a low laying area. In this case I turned those watches & warnings off for my house, which means eliminates an unneeded wake up call. (Great page with list of vendors, programing via NWR)

More Modern Options:

One option is signing up for a text / email alert service. If there isn’t one near you, you may try looking into services like this one from http://www.emergencyemail.org. In most cases these are completely free (minus any carrier fees) & if you have them sent to your cell phone you should be covered for those subscribed areas. In some cases, you might even find out that your kids school is letting out early which is generally not covered by many other types of systems.

You knew there would have to be an app for that, right… Well, I hate to say this, but I have yet to try any of them out. Along those lines; while something might be great in one area, it might not be so great in another area. I would actually recommend checking with your local TV weathermen / station & see if they have developed a weather alert app (which in many cases is free like these from Fox6) or see if they have an opinion on what they would recommend. Based on the cell service in our area, and concerns with leaving the GPS on I probably won’t be trying any of these options anytime soon.