Being safe and weather aware with my weather radio

About four years ago, I purchased a weather radio equipped with S.A.M.E. technology. S.A.M.E. stands for Specific Area Message Encoder. What this special weather radio does for me is that the S.A.M.E. technology is can receive tone alerted advisories, watches, and warnings specific to the New Jersey county where I live. There are a long list of weather and related events that my weather radio can transmit, see this list from Midland USA (the manufacturer of my radio). As I understand it, when my National Weather Forecast Weather Forecast Office (WFO) at Mt. Holly, NJ issues advisories, watches, and warnings for certain events, those with S.A.M.E. weather radios will receive a tone-alerted statement with an audible recording alerting us of a specific hazard. This alert-toned statements are automatic, I don't have to do anything.

The list of what are known as event codes that S.M.A.R.T. equipped weather radios can transmit is long. While not every code on the list will be relevant for your area, your WFO is capable of transmitting any code on the event code list. There are event codes on the list for fires, including wildfire watches and warnings.

The list of event codes is much, much longer than the WEA event alerts those of you who have WEA enabled smart phones will receive. We have received three types of WEA alerts, Flash Flood Warnings, Tornado Warnings, and a Snow Squall Warning. We could receive a WEA hurricane warning, it is hurricane season after all.

The radio is programmable, I have it set to default so I receive most alert codes except for some administrative and testing codes.

My weather radio lives in my home office on a shelf near a window for better reception, and it has battery back-up for use during power outages. Its only and important purpose is to provide me with advisories, watches, and warnings issued by my National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office.

As regular readers know, I am a big proponent of being safe. For me that means being weather aware. I got my weather radio sometime after Super Storm Sandy hit New Jersey because it was time to upgrade and get a new weather radio.

During the winter, I would get the occasional tone-alerted blizzard or flash freeze warning. During the spring, summer and fall, I would get severe thunderstorm warnings and the occasional tornado watch. Once last fall I got a tornado warning, as we also did on our WEA enabled smart phones.

Last week my little Midland Weather Radio got quite a workout as we were under a tornado watch last Tuesday and Wednesday night The Mt. Holly Weather Forecast Area had one EF2 and three EF1 tornadoes last Tuesday and Wednesday (May 28th and 29th) along with flash flooding on Thursday night.  I lost count of how many tone-alerted notifications for watches and warnings I received, several over the course of May 28th and 29th and about three or four on May 30th.

While my specific location was not under a tornado warning last week, one night the northern and southern parts of my county were under tornado warnings (because the radio alerts for the whole county). The advantage here is that I knew what was going on around me.  I was as prepared as I could be, I have my safe place in our house along with a stash of water and food.

I have to admit that the alert-tone itself is quite startling. It is designed to get your attention and it certainly does. There are times when the tone scares the you-know-what out of me, especially if I have not heard the alert-tone in awhile.

The button that you see in the photo, allows me to listen to the weather radio where I will hear the local weather forecast and observations issued by my WFO