What is PCA?

In addition to whole county alerting some NWS offices are looking to sub-divide the County by what we call Partial County Alerting (PCA). This will be most noticeable via alerts issued with the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and NOAA Weather Radio (NWR). Alerting via EAS and NWR are based on the Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) and Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME), which tells the alert where to go.

If PCA is adopted, in addition to the entire County alerting, residents will be separated into distinct geographical areas. This will be annotated by the leading digit of the SAME code. The SAME code is the FIPS codes plus a digit at the beginning. FIPS for Hennepin County is 27053 with the SAME code being 027053. FIPS codes that are Partial County Alerting will change the first zero (0) to a digit between one (1) and nine (9). See the maps linked on this page to find out what the leading digit changes to for your city, x27053, where x is a number between 1-9.

Note: PCA will NOT impact Wireless Emergency Alerts. If you choose to continue receiving alerts for the entire county via NOAA Weather Radio, no action is needed. 

PCA Explanation

What is Changing?

Due to a very positive response from users, NWS Weather Forecast Office (WFO) Twin Cities, MN will implement a change in the dissemination of warnings via NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR) and the Emergency Alert System (EAS) for Hennepin County on or about March 18, 2025. This change will target the delivery of weather warnings to populations in a more targeted threat area and minimize or eliminate unnecessary delivery of weather and water warnings to residents located far from the threat area. 

• SAME Location Code for Hennepin County: 027053


• Additional SAME Location Codes (optional):
  • Northwest Hennepin: 127053
  • Northeast Hennepin: 327053
  • West Hennepin: 427053
  • Central Hennepin: 527053
  • East Hennepin: 627053
  • South Hennepin: 827053

NWR listeners who wish to continue receiving SAME weather alerts for all Hennepin County partitions should make no changes and continue using SAME Code 027053.

NWR listeners who wish to receive SAME weather alerts specific to their local area should add the appropriate, partition-specific SAME Code and delete SAME Code 027053.  If you live near a partition boundary, you may wish to program multiple SAME codes. 

Note that if WFO Twin Cities issues a weather alert applicable to the entire county, you will continue to receive these alerts. You will also continue to receive all Civil Emergency Messages issued for Hennepin County.

New Hennepin County Partitions

NOAA Weather Radio

NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR) uses Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) when the following warnings are issued by WFO Twin Cities:

• Dust Storm Warning (DSW)
• Flash Flood Warning (FFW)
• Severe Thunderstorm Warning (SVR)
• Snow Squall Warning (SQW)
• Tornado Warning (TOR)

Although NWS meteorologists specify latitude and longitude points (i.e., polygons) to identify the threat area, the warnings from Hennepin County have always been disseminated via NWR and the Emergency Alert System (EAS) to the whole county. This means that even if a very small part of Hennepin County is included in a warning, all of Hennepin County receives the warning via SAME. Because of Hennepin County's population is heavily weighted to the eastern half of the county, residents are unnecessarily receiving EAS and NWR notifications for warnings in areas located up to 30 miles from the actual threat area. The implementation of this change will allow the user to only receive alerts if their partition is within the warning polygon. 

Additional Information

• Find Your New SAME Code using your address
• PCA fact sheet
• 6 Weather Forecast Offices Using PCA
• Programming Your NWR Receiver for PCA: Q&A
• SAME Location Codes for Counties
• SAME Location Code Information for Using PCA
• Information for Broadcasters
• Reference: see how our friends in Clark County, NV implemented PCA

For questions about PCA, please email:
National Weather Service Twin Cities
E-mail: NWS Twin Cities