A family is awakened in the middle of the night
by an alarm on its weather radio. The special receiver carries
a tornado warning advising listeners to seek cover.
The family
retreats from its mobile home to a nearby shelter moments before
a twister tears through the
community, scattering lives and mangled
aluminum in its wake.
A recreational vehicle owner in a campground
picks up a flash flood alert on his weather radio and moves his
RV to higher ground. Minutes later a wall of water sweeps through
his former campsite.
On a December trip from Washington, D.C.
to Cleveland, a saleswoman learns of a severe winter storm warning
when an alarm sounds on the weather band of her CB radio. She
changes her route and averts a delay of many hours due to road
closures.
In two cases, lives are saved, and in another,
a winter storm is bypassed, all thanks to a small radio receiver
available for about the cost of a new pair of shoes.
Weather reports and warnings like those
mentioned above are broadcast directly to special radio receivers
around the clock by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
(NOAA) Weather Radio network,
the "Voice" of the National
Weather Service (NWS). Some weather radios have the capability
to receive a tone alarm signal, triggering a built-in alarm to
warn listeners of severe weather announcements.
But despite real-life stories like those
mentioned above, NOAA Weather Radio remains one of the best kept
secrets in the United States.
NOAA Weather Radio advises people of severe
weather watches and warnings, buying extra time for people to
react before dangerous storms hit their areas. When you're in
the path of something like a tornado, minutes and seconds can
mean the difference between life and death.
Weather service offices tailor their NOAA
Weather Radio broadcasts to suit local needs and commercial interests.
For example, broadcasts in New England may focus on marine weather
conditions for recreational boaters and fishing and shipping vessels.
Routine information is updated every one
to three hours, and the broadcasts continuously repeat. Weather
service offices immediately interrupt regular reports when a severe
weather situation requires a live alert or warning. Reports air
on one of seven VHF high-band FM frequencies between 162.400 and
162.550 megahertz (MHZ).
NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts began in the
1950s when the old Weather Bureau started broadcasting weather
information over two stations. In the 1960s, stations were added
for the marine community, and by the late 1970s, the system included
more than 300 stations.
Now more than 475 transmitters are within the listening range
of most of the Nation's population. In 1975, NOAA Weather Radio
became the only government-operated radio system for providing
direct warnings to private homes for weather and other significant
hazards. It's also the primary source of information for activating
the Nation's Emergency Alert System.
Currently the National Weather Service is
modernizing, building a network of improved radars, satellites,
automated weather observing systems, supercomputers and telecommunications
capabilities aimed at saving lives and preserving property.
But state-of-the-art forecasting technology
and accurate warnings and forecasts are of little value if people
who need the information don't get it in a timely manner. That's
why the Weather Service also is modernizing the NOAA Weather Radio
network. Additional transmitters funded through partnerships with
local industry and government agencies, are expanding the system's
coverage to unserved areas. New audio consoles with programmable,
computer-based systems will automatically convert weather messages
directly from electronic text to speech and broadcast them at
appropriate times.
All NWR transmitters are now equipped with
Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) technology. SAME technology
provides direct activation of the Emergency Alert System, the
Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) replacement for the
Emergency Broadcast System, on commercial radio, television and
cable outlets. In addition, SAME technology will allow for direct
warnings of severe weather in a specific locale (county or subcounty
level) to those who have radio receivers programmed to receive
SAME broadcast signals. A digital audio code (quick high-pitched
tones similar to what is heard on some telephone transmissions)
precedes every severe weather alarm broadcast by the National
Weather Service over NOAA Weather Radio. The digital code identifies
the type of warning being sent and denotes the specific geographic
segment of the listening area receiving the alarm. New SAME-capable
receivers now on the market can be programmed by consumers to
screen out alarms for areas they don't want. The technology change
has no effect on older NOAA Weather Radio receivers.
Following a tornado that killed more than
20 people in a rural Alabama church on Palm Sunday in 1994, Vice
President Al Gore set a goal to make NOAA Weather Radio receivers
as common as smoke detectors in American homes and to extend the
coverage provided by the NOAA Weather Radio transmitter network
to 95 percent of the United States.
Since the Gore NOAA Weather Radio initiative
began, the National Weather Service and other members of the Gore
task force have been actively promoting public/private sector
partnerships to provide the needed resources. More than 75 new
weather radio transmitters have been installed since 1994 through
grass roots partnerships combining resources of private enterprises,
associations, and local, state and federal government agencies.
The NWS also broadcasts non-weather emergency
information, making NOAA Weather Radio an "all-hazards"
network. All-hazards broadcasts air warning information on earthquakes,
volcano activity, and man-made hazardous conditions will be used
for communicating relief information after such disasters.
The goal of the NOAA Weather Radio Initiative
is to someday have a NOAA Weather Radio in every home, and in
all schools, hospitals and other public gathering places, to give
people the kind of information they need to safeguard themselves
and their homes during a disaster.
