How many noaa weather stations

This digital datastream is available nationwide directly from several satellites and, in an increasing number of locations, in an easier and less costly manner using local radio rebroadcasts and other techniques. This approach provides the necessary redundancy for reliable data reception by a wide variety of users. EMWIN was designed to be a low-speed currently bits per second, but expected to increase , low-cost alternative for emergency management officials and others that have no access to weather data or have few resources to afford such data.

Even at this current low speed, over pages of information can be received each day. The goal of the National Weather Service and emergency preparedness agencies is to expand the reach of weather radio broadcasts to cover 95 percent of the U. Innovative partnerships between the NWS, private industry, and state and local governments are fueling this expansion. You can help foster such partnerships in your community.

For more information concerning developing a partnership with the NWS, contact our office at between AM and PM weekdays, or e-mail ask. I live west or south of Philadelphia and can no longer receive the signal from the Philadelphia transmitter. What happened, and are you planning to do anything to fix it?

That station reaches nearly all of the upper Delmarva peninsula, and even into southern Chester County Pennsylvania and portions of Salem and Cumberland Counties New Jersey. In a new low-power transmitter was installed in Hibernia Park, PA, western Chester County, which covers the rest of the area no longer served adequately by the Philadelphia station.

Are the people who read the forecasts real or not? Most of the voices you hear are computer generated. Real human voices are only heard sparingly. He is completely synthesized, meaning that the computer algorithms produce all the sounds from scratch and put them together to form the words and phrases you hear. Any particular word will sound the same every time it is pronounced, no matter what the context.

They are examples of concatenated-synthesized speech, where recordings of actual voices are parsed into the parts of syllables diphones , then put back together using computer algorithms to sound more life-like than a purely synthesized voice like Paul. They also try and pronounce words according to context i.

Unfortunately, our forecasts are not always written in complete sentences, which can confuse the algorithms that drive the voices and result in less than perfect intonations. The first reason is to speed delivery of short-fused warnings over the radio.

Manually recording warnings require a number of steps to ensure that the proper counties will be toned and that the proper valid time is encoded. The whole process takes minutes from when a warning is issued to when it is broadcast. Automated recordings reduce that time to seconds, which could mean the difference between life and death if you are in the path of an oncoming severe thunderstorm or tornado.

The second reason is that our office has eight separate NOAA Weather Radio transmitters, each with its own specific broadcast suite. It would be virtually impossible to do that with eight transmitters, as our staffing levels have fallen.

We typically have only two or three meteorologists working at any given time. What happened to the other male computer voice that you used to broadcast?

The voice was not easy to understand when you first heard it. That was a problem for those who just used their Weather Radio to receive warnings. Critical warning information e,. Our office was the first in the country to broadcast the new voices in January By late summer , Tom and Donna were being used by most offices nationwide. Are there any improvements coming in the near future? Speechworks has also developed a Spanish voice for NOAA Weather Radio, which has been used by some offices beginning in but not here where there is a significant Spanish-speaking population.

I heard a word or phrase that was mispronounced. We have gone through most of the words and place names that appear regularly, and have added pronunciations for the voices to use if the default pronunciation was inadequate. The computer algorithms will just try and read the word the way it appears, with unexpected results. You may either call our Public Service line at between AM and PM weekdays and pass along the problem word to the person who answers the phone, or send an e-mail to phi.

Either way, please let us know which transmitter you were listening to, the approximate time you heard the problem word or phrase, which voice said it, and if possible, which product it was in e. What can I do about that? With the addition of the Specific Area Message Encoding SAME technology, life-saving messages broadcast on NOAA Weather Radio can be targeted to a more specific area, like a county or portion of a county, to bring more hazard-specific information to the listening audience. While older models of weather radio receivers will continue to work, to take full advantage of the specific area warning technologies, you will need to get a state-of-the-art receiver with digital SAME capabilities for receiving geographically specific warnings.

What is SAME and how did it evolve? A special feature of the NOAA Weather Radio system that evolved in the 's was the transmission of a single tone at Hz prior to the broadcast of any message about a life or property threatening event.

Special receivers were made by several companies to remain electronically on and receiving the broadcast signal, but with the speaker muted. This system was also tasked to disseminate nuclear attack warnings and other national emergencies. Techniques were developed allowing warnings broadcast over the Weather Radio to be rebroadcast over commercial radio and television stations as part of the Emergency Broadcast System EBS.

The analog WAT technology served the Weather Radio network well until the mid s, when the rapid expansion of cable television and the automation of commercial radio and television began to isolate the public from local sources of warning information.

Typically, the WAT was transmitted for any watch or warning over an area of approximately 5, square miles, or about seven to ten average-sized counties.

Therefore, the typical receiver in the service area of the station might be activated many times for events far from its location for every time it alarmed for an event in the immediate area. Without staff at media facilities to manually evaluate the need to rebroadcast a Weather Radio message using the EBS, automatic rebroadcasting of all messages preceded by just the WAT was unacceptable and impractical.

Even if stations and others with that type of need were willing to allow for this type of automatic capture, assuming the events for activation were critical, there was no way for automated equipment at the station to know when the message was complete and restore it back to normal operation. Starting in , the NWS began experimenting with putting special digital codes at the beginning and end of any message concerning life or property threatening event.

The intent was to ultimately transmit a code with the initial broadcast of all Weather Radio messages. The SAME process was originally achieved using an encoder panel consisting of a number of buttons representing the functions to be performed, types or content of messages, the affected areas, and valid time of the message.

A microprocessor in the panel interpreted button active status and created the proper codes and places them at the beginning and end of each message. The panel was electronically connected to the various types of message programming and playback consoles used by the NWS to broadcast messages over the Weather Radio transmitters. The existing encoder panels are only used as emergency backup in CRS. These include technological accidents e. Where can I get the geographic code s I need to program my receiver?

I live in one county and work in another or I live near the county line. Every National Weather Service office schedules a weekly test for each of its Weather Radio transmitters. Our tests are normally done every Wednesday, between 11 AM and Noon local time. If there is severe weather occurring, or the threat of severe weather exists during the normal test time, the test is postponed until the next available good-weather day between 11 AM and Noon.

What can I do? There are a few things you might try. First, ensure that you have the proper SAME code entered into your radio, and that your county is in the broadcast area for the transmitter. Go to:. Second, your radio may not be able to pick up the tones if the overall signal reception is poor.

Try to position your radio where the signal appears the strongest. If the signal fades in and out over time, you might try connecting an external antenna to your receiver. Third, if you purchased your radio locally, take it back to see if a knowledgeable person there can check the programming or has other suggestions.

Which watches and warnings are currently toned or alarmed? Generally, only those watches and warnings associated with an immediate or short-fused event are toned and alarmed.

That means that Winter Storm watches and warnings are NOT alarmed, except for Blizzard warnings and for those Winter Storm warnings when the lead time is very short. Normally, Winter Storm warnings are issued many hours before the precipitation begins, as opposed to Tornado or Flash Flood warnings, where the lead time may only be minutes.

Blizzard Warning - BZW. Hurricane Warning - HUW. Hurricane Watch - HUA. Tornado Warning - TOR. Tornado Watch - TOA. Tsunami Warning - TSW. Tsunami Watch - TSA. The following products are broadcast with only the HZ alarm but see below about future plans :. Coastal Flood Warning only for immediate life-threatening situations.

Special Marine Warning. Which watches and warnings will be alarmed in the future? The seven NWR broadcast frequencies are: Broadcast range from the weather radio transmitter is approximately 40 miles.

Before you buy a receiver, make sure your area is covered by one of the transmitters. The most desirable feature is an alarm tone. This allows you to have the radio turned on but quiet, listening for a special tone that is broadcast before watch and warning messages. During an emergency, National Weather Service Forecasters will interrupt routine weather radio programming and send out a special tone that activates the NOAA Weather Radios in the listening area.

A new generation of NWR receiver allows you to pre-select the National Weather Service alerts you want to receive according to local geographic areas counties or in some cases portions of counties. Look for NWR receivers with the SAME feature Specific Area Message Encoding which means that the receiver is capable of turning itself on from a silent mode when the digital code is broadcast before the alarm tone is sounded for the geographic area which you have pre-selected.

In addition, a good receiver should be able to operate on batteries during times when electrical services may be interrupted. Look for radios with an AC adapter and battery compartment. The radio should be tunable or switchable to al seven NWR frequencies. Some older models receiver only three frequencies which will not work in all locations. Several manufacturers of car radios Audiovox, Clarion, and Panasonic sell in-dash units capable of receiving NWR broadcasts.

Thanks to NOAA Weather Radio-All Hazards, you'll always have the answer to that question and access to potentially life-saving emergency information whenever you need it.

Not only does NOAA Weather Radio-All Hazards provide weather reports and information to help you plan your day, but it also broadcasts special National Weather Service warnings, watches, forecasts, and other hazard information, including Homeland Security Alerts, 24 hours a day. It is a nationwide network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information direct from a nearby National Weather Service forecast office.

When you purchase a NOAA Weather Radio-All Hazards receiver, you gain direct access to part of the NWS network and the same weather reports and emergency information that meteorologists and emergency personnel use—that can save your life!