National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Snow May Produce Poor Travel Conditions in the North-Central U.S. and East Coast

A strong cold front sweeping across the Northern Plains may bring snow showers and snow squalls from eastern Montana to north-central Nebraska, with blizzard conditions possible in eastern North Dakota and northwestern Montana. Heavy snow is expected to persist downwind of the Great Lakes. Snow showers will spread up the East Coast across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coasts. Read More >

NOAA Weather Radio "SAME" Information


Most NOAA Weather Radios utilize Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME). In other words, you can choose the official watches and warnings that affect only your county area and screen out any warnings issued for other counties within the typical 40-mile broadcast range of the weather radio transmitter.

How does SAME work? Utilizing the Emergency Alert System (EAS), the National Weather Service sends a digital code before and after each alert message through our NOAA Weather Radio transmitters. The SAME weather radios act as EAS decoders and decipher what the alert is and which county it is valid for.

To program the new style weather radios, you need to know the FIPS codes for your county or counties you would like alarmed.

For more information on SAME technology for NOAA Weather Radio, click here.