NOAA Weather Radio


NOAA Weather Radio, also known as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards, is an automated 24-hour network of VHF FM weather radio stations in the United States which broadcast weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Service office. Its routine programming cycle includes local or regional weather forecasts, synopsis, climate summaries or zone/lake/coastal waters forecasts, and can be shortened to specifically include hazardous weather outlooks, short-term forecasts, special weather statements or tropical weather summaries during hazardous weather events. It occasionally broadcasts other non-weather related events such as national security statements, natural disaster information, environmental and public safety statements such as Amber alerts, civil emergencies, fires, evacuation orders, and other hazards sourced from the Federal Communications Commission's Emergency Alert System. NOAA Weather Radio uses automated broadcast technology that allows for the recycling of segments featured in one broadcast cycle into another and for consistent regular updating of segments to each of the transmitters.
Weather radios are widely sold online and in retail stores that specialize in consumer electronics in Canada and the US. They are available in many supermarkets and drugstores in the southern and midwestern US, which are particularly susceptible to severe weather—large portions of these regions are commonly referred to as "Tornado Alley".

History

The U.S. Weather Bureau first began broadcasting marine weather information in Chicago and New York City on two VHF radio stations in 1960 as an experiment. Proving to be successful, the broadcasts expanded to serve the general public in coastal regions in the 1960s and early 1970s. By early 1970, ESSA listed 20 U.S. cities using 162.55 MHz and one using 163.275 "ESSA VHF Radio Weather." Later, the U.S. Weather Bureau adopted its current name, National Weather Service, and was operating 29 VHF-FM weather-radio transmitters under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which replaced ESSA in 1970. The service was designed with boaters, fishermen, travelers and more in mind, allowing listeners to quickly receive a "life-saving" weather bulletin from their local weather forecast office, along with routinely updated forecasts and other climatological data in a condensed format at any time of the day or night. The general public could have the latest weather updates when they needed them, and the benefit of more lead-time to prepare during severe conditions. In 1974, NOAA Weather Radio, as it was now called, reached about 44 percent of the U.S. population over 66 nationwide transmitters. NWR grew to over 300 stations by the late 1970s.
Local NWS staff were the voices heard on NWR stations from its inception until the late 1990s when "Paul" was introduced. The messages were recorded on tape, and later by digital means, then placed in the broadcast cycle. This technology limited the programming variability and locked it into a repetitive sequential order. It also slowed down the speed of warning messages when severe weather happened, because each NWS office could have up to eight transmitters. "Paul" was a computerized voice using the DECtalk text-to-speech system. "Paul's" voice was dissatisfactory and difficult to understand; thus "Craig", "Tom", "Donna" and later "Javier" were introduced in 2002 using the Speechify text-to-speech system from SpeechWorks. A completely new voice from the VoiceText text-to-speech system, also named "Paul", was introduced in 2016 and implemented nationwide by late in the year. Live human voices are still used occasionally for weekly tests of the Specific Area Message Encoding and 1,050 Hz tone alerting systems, station IDs, and in the event of system failure or computer upgrades. They will also be used on some stations for updates on the time and radio frequency.
In the 1990s, the National Weather Service adopted plans to implement SAME technology nationwide; the roll-out moved slowly until 1995, when the U.S. government provided the budget needed to develop the SAME technology across the entire radio network. Nationwide implementation occurred in 1997 when the Federal Communications Commission adopted the SAME standard as part of its new Emergency Alert System. NOAA Weather Radio's public alerting responsibilities expanded from hazardous weather-only events to "all hazards" being broadcast.

Expansion

In the wake of the 1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak, one of the key recommendations from the U.S. Weather Bureau's storm survey team, was the establishment of a nationwide radio network that could be used to broadcast weather warnings to the general public, hospitals, key institutions, news media, schools, and the public safety community. Starting in 1966, the Environmental Science Services Administration started a nationwide program known as "ESSA VHF Weather Radio Network." In the early 1970s, this was changed to NOAA Weather Radio. The service was expanded to coastal locations during the 1970s in the wake of Hurricane Camille based upon recommendations made by the Department of Commerce after the storm in September 1969.
Since then, a proliferation of stations have been installed and activated to ensure near-complete geographical coverage and "weather-readiness", many of which have been funded by state emergency management agencies in cooperation with the NOAA to expand the network, or state public broadcasting networks. To avoid interference and allow for more specific area coverage, the number of frequencies in use by multiple stations grew to two with the addition of 162.400 MHz in 1970 followed by the third in 1975 with the remaining four coming into use by 1981.
In the 1950s, the Weather Bureau started with KWO35 in New York City and later added KWO39 in Chicago. By 1965 it had added KID77 in Kansas City, home to the Severe Local Storms Center, as the third continuous VHF radio transmitter with the fourth, KBA99 in Honolulu, operating by January 1967.
Denver became the 60th NWR station in September 1972 and by December 1976 there were roughly 100 stations transmitting on three channels in December 1976.
Growth accelerated in the mid-1970s with NWR reaching 200 radio stations in May 1978 with WXK49 in Memphis, Tennessee; 300 in September 1979 with WXL45 in Columbia, Missouri; and by 1988, the NWS operated about 380 stations covering approximately 90 percent of the nation's population. This grew to over 500 radio stations by May 1999, and over 800 by the end of 2001. As of January 2020, there were about 1,032 stations in operation in fifty states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and Saipan, with over 95% effective coverage.

Operations

The NOAA Weather Radio network is provided as a public service by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA also provides secondary weather information, usually limited to marine storm warnings for sea vessels navigating the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to HF band "time stations" WWV and WWVH. These shortwave radio stations continuously broadcast time signals and disseminate the "official" U.S. Government time, and are operated by the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Radio

The radio service transmits weather and marine forecasts and other related information, without any interruptions. In addition, NWR works in cooperation with the FCC's Emergency Alert System, providing comprehensive severe weather alerts and civil emergency information. In conjunction with federal, state and local emergency managers and other public officials, NWR has the ability to broadcast alerts and post-event information for all types of hazards, including natural, human-made, technological and other public safety. Listening to a NOAA Weather Radio station requires a VHF radio receiver or scanner capable of receiving at least one of seven specific VHF-FM channels within the frequency range of 162.400 through 162.550 MHz, collectively known as the "Weather Band". For example, a receiver that only tunes in standard AM or FM broadcast stations will not suffice.

Television

Many cable television systems and some commercial television stations will, during EAS activation, rebroadcast the audio of a warning message first heard on their local NWR station, to alert viewers of a severe weather event or civil emergency, usually with the issuance of a tornado warning or tornado emergency, especially in tornado-prone areas of the country.

Programming

Broadcast schedule

Local NOAA offices update the content broadcast over NOAA Weather Radio transmitters on a regular basis, according to the following schedule:
Local timeUpdate
01:00–12:00Area climate summary
04:30Regional forecast
05:00–07:00Regional weather synopsis
07:00Hazardous weather outlook and call for action for NWS-trained SKYWARN volunteer weather spotters
07:00Regional climate summary
10:30Regional forecast
12:00Hazardous weather outlook and call for action for NWS-trained SKYWARN volunteer weather spotters
13:00–15:00Three- to five-day extended forecast
15:30Regional forecast
16:00–22:00Regional weather synopsis
17:00–21:00Area climate summary
20:30Regional forecast

Updates to routine observational products are typically recorded once per hour, and are broadcast at five or 10, and at 15 minutes past the hour.

Broadcast routine


As a continuous spoken weather service, NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards maintains a multi-tier concept for relaying meteorological observations, routine forecasts and weather hazards to the general public. Actual forecasts and offered products vary by the area serviced by the transmitter. During severe weather situations, Watch Information Statements for government-designated jurisdictions served by the local NWR station are typically inserted within the station's normal playlist of routine products; a special severe weather playlist temporarily suspends most regularly scheduled routine products in the event National Weather Service-issued warnings are in effect for the station's broadcast area, which solely incorporate watch, warning and Special Weather Statements, and any active Short-Term Forecasts and Hazardous Weather Outlooks.
SegmentOn-air updatesDescription
Hourly Weather Roundup:05/:10/:15 past the hourA one- to two-minute segment outlining the current weather conditions for the NWR station's service region, detailing the most recent hourly observation for the main reporting station, current observations within 40 miles, then current observations within 80 miles of the WFO's area of responsibility, and finally an abbreviated observation summary for the main reporting station.
If no report is available from the main reporting station, the report from the closest observation site will be substituted. In some locales, if a regularly-reported station has no available report, the message "the report from was not available" will be broadcast. The regional portion may be condensed to a roundup format if the temperatures are within a 5 °F range or if sky conditions are the same or differ limitedly at each given reporting site.
Occasionally, due to technical or other problems, the previous hour's observations segment may be included in the product playlist as long as 15 minutes into the next hour, after which it is removed until updated information is available.
Hazardous Weather Outlook7:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. This segment overviews the information about potential thunderstorm activity, heavy rain or flooding, winter weather, wildfire, extremes of heat or cold, or other conditions that may pose a hazard or threat to travel, life or property over the next seven days. Occasionally, a NWS WFO may update the Hazardous Weather Outlook while an event is ongoing or if forecast models denote changes from previous forecasts. Depending on the NWS office, it may either state all weather hazards from Day 1–7 or Day 1 separately from Day 2–7.
Regional Weather Synopsis/SummaryEvery 5–6 hours A report that provides a brief overview of weather events from the previous or current day within the region, followed by an outlook of expected weather from the current time to the next few days.
Regional Climate SummaryEvery 15 minutes A summary includes information on the minimum and maximum temperatures recorded the previous day; 30-year temperature averages and historical temperature extremes. It also includes wind speed data, sky cover data, historical humidity extremes, humidity averages, the day's recorded weather conditions and heating with cooling degree day data. Depending on the areas, the sunrise and sunset times for the next two days are stated within the summary or as a separate report.
Some stations broadcast this first report as early as 1:00 a.m. and the last report as late as 12:00 p.m.
Regional Forecast4:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. A report that provides the forecasts for the next seven days for all the counties across the station's coverage area. In case the time for the updates on another segment has not come yet, this forecast will typically be broadcast on a looped format.
Short Term ForecastRandomized timesA localized, event-driven report used to provide the public with detailed weather information during significant or rapidly changing weather conditions during the next 3–6 hours. This forecast will often mention the position of precipitation as detected by radar. In most areas, this forecast product is not included during routine programming, but will be included when severe weather threatens the listening area.
Special Weather StatementRandomized timesA regional event-driven report using to provide the public with details of the upcoming significant weather event, such as a major winter storm, a heat wave, or potential flooding. A significant weather advisory may be issued within a Special Weather Statement, often if thunderstorm activity whether severe or not is occurring in, or approaching an area.
Record Information AnnouncementRandomized timesA segment providing newly set records for coldest/warmest maximum or minimum temperature and maximum precipitation.
Zone ForecastDepending on the officeA text forecast for local beaches issued by coastal stations, including coastal hazard information such as that pertaining to rip currents. In more coastal offices, this forecast is scheduled to play every cycle, compared to every half hour in more inland offices.
River ForecastIf neededThis forecast is only broadcast if there is a potential for flooding or it is occurring, which would then be included with the hazardous weather outlook. Daily river forecasts are issued by the 13 river forecast centers using hydrologic models based on variables such as rainfall, soil characteristics and precipitation forecasts. Some forecasts, especially those in mountainous regions, also provide seasonal snow pack and peak flow forecasts. A separate forecast, River and Small Stream Observations, is broadcast in areas in and outside the 13 river forecast centers and is only broadcast following a significant hydrological event featuring information on crests, and present and forecasted flood stages.
Lake ForecastA forecast that is issued by most stations in the Great Lakes region to explicitly state expected weather conditions within the marine forecast area through the next five days. The report addresses expected wave heights and small-craft advisories currently in effect.
Coastal Waters ForecastA forecast stating expected weather conditions and wave heights within the marine forecast area through the next five days.
Tropical Weather SummaryEvery three hours An event-driven report provides an information summary on any active tropical cyclones. Activity summaries for the Atlantic Basin are typically included with stations located in states near the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, while stations along the West Coast receive summaries concerning the Pacific Ocean. Depending on the station and associated Weather Forecast Office, listeners can hear this report every half hour.
Ultraviolet IndexA daily exposure index played on some NOAA stations. The ultraviolet index is categorized by the maximum exposure of the sun's rays during the peak hours of sunlight. It ranges in the following numbers/categories:

1-2, 3-5, 6-7, 8-10, and 11+

These are additional products that are included in the broadcast cycle occasionally :
  • Air Quality Index Statement
  • Agricultural Forecast
  • Area Forecast Discussion
  • Area Weather Update
  • Daily/Monthly Hydrometeorological Products
  • Heat Index Forecast
  • High Seas Forecast
  • Hydro-Met Data Report
  • Miscellaneous Hydrologic Data
  • Miscellaneous Local Product
  • Miscellaneous River Product
  • Public Information Statement
  • Offshore Forecast
  • Quantitative Precipitation Forecast
  • State Forecast
  • Suppression Forecast
  • Tabular State Forecast
  • Terminal Aerodrome Forecast
  • Travellers Forecast