Contact: Keli Tarp
(405) -366-0451
Cell (405) 203-4839
Keli.Tarp@nssl.noaa.gov

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFERS HELP
PROGRAMMING WEATHER RADIOS

Volunteers with Operation Warn will help NOAA Weather Radio owners program their units from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday (May 19) in front of the Hobby Shop near JC Penney's at Crossroads Mall, 7000 Crossroads Boulevard, in Oklahoma City.

A NOAA Weather Radio is an important safety device for severe weather. In the past year, Oklahoma City area residents have purchased more than 22,000 life-saving NOAA Weather Radios through Operation Warn, an initiative to make available 100,000 specially-priced NOAA Weather Radios to Oklahoma City residents by the end of 2002. It is coordinated by Oklahoma City Emergency Management, Oklahoma Department of Civil Emergency Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service.

"A NOAA Weather Radio with an alarm and battery back-up is one of the best ways to protect your family from tornadoes, especially at night when the alarm feature can wake you up," said Mike Foster, meteorologist-in-charge of the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Norman. "The severe weather information on NOAA Weather Radio can prompt you to take life-saving action. It is also a cue to turn to commercial radio and television for more information."

When severe weather watches and warnings are issued, an alarm will sound and the radio will turn itself on to broadcast the information. With new digital technology called Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME), the alarm on a NOAA Weather Radio can be limited to counties in the immediate area. On Saturday, NOAA staff will provide the special codes needed to do this and instructions for programming the radio.

According to the National Weather Service, between 85 to 95 percent of Americans can receive NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts, however only 5 to 10 percent actually own a NOAA Weather Radio.

"NOAA Weather Radio saves lives," Foster said. "We encourage everyone to equip their homes, schools, businesses and public places with this life-saving device. We want to make NOAA Weather Radios as common as smoke detectors," Foster said.

For more information, call 360-5928 or 360-3620.

Information about NOAA Weather Radio is available online at: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun and http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr