Severe Weather Awareness - NOAA Weather Radio

Wisconsin Tornado and Severe Weather Awareness

NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards 

NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards not only provides you with the current forecast and weather conditions for your area, it can also save your life. The weather radio is the smoke detector of the weather world. Every year people around the United States are saved because they received a timely warning from a NOAA Weather Radio.

In addition, a non-weather related emergency can potentially be tone-alerted on the NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards network. This is what the "All Hazards" concept is all about.

NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards broadcasts weather and hazard information for every county in the United States, 24 hours a day. Currently over 900 weather radio transmitters are in operation across the country. Broadcasts are made over seven channels, or frequencies, each covering a three to seven county area. The frequency range for the seven channels is centered around 162.450MHZ. Wisconsin has excellent weather radio coverage, thanks to 35 transmitters in or near the state that provide full or partial coverage. The best way to keep abreast of rapidly changing summer (or winter) weather conditions is to purchase a NOAA Weather Radio. They can be purchased at most major electronics stores, carrying an average price range between $30-$70 depending on the features included on the radio. Any of the radios, regardless of the price, will provide you with up to the minute warnings and other general weather information.

It is a good idea to purchase a radio with some type of automatic alert system and a battery backup. Some of the more expensive radios will include the new SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) technology. The SAME technology will make it easier to get specific county severe weather information. You can program your weather radio to provide a tone alert only when weather affects your county, or surrounding counties, and to specify only certain types of warnings or advisories. Programming multiple counties is especially handy if you live and work in different counties.

The hearing and visually impaired can also be alerted to severe weather by connecting NOAA Weather Radios with alarm tones to other kinds of alerting devices such as strobe lights, pagers, bed shakers, personal computers and text printers.

The National Weather Service strongly recommends that all homes, schools, businesses and other places where groups of people gather should have a tone-alert weather radio. Every year advanced notice of severe weather such as thunderstorms, flash floods and tornadoes has proven to be a life saver.

For more information on NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards please check out the National Weather Service web site on NOAA Weather Radio at:

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/