Over the last few months, broadcasters across the U.S. have learned about a series of rolling software updates that are causing NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) stations to experience periods of downtime.
While these updates were scheduled in advance, the disruption in service has caused some broadcasters to question whether adequate failsafes are in place should severe weather arise while NWR is down in any given area.
NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is a nationwide network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information directly from the nearest National Weather Service (NWS) office. The service plays a critical role in disseminating emergency information during severe weather events.
In Radio World’s initial report, we learned that, as early as April, NWR stations have been taken out of service for several days for a “necessary scheduled system update.” This downtime is being used to update NWS offices’ Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, or AWIPS, with work expected to continue through the end of June.
No “Ideal” Time
After the release of our story on May 20, some Radio World readers had questions about how government agencies like the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) communicate with local emergency management offices and broadcasters.
One such reader, SBE National Board Member Ched Keiler, expressed concern that not all broadcasters were well-informed about these scheduled system updates.
Keiler says the public relies on NWS and NOAA for weather and emergency alerts, as do radio and television stations, as well as cable systems. “If a tremendous part of the system is down, the delivery of those messages becomes impaired or impossible to deliver to the public.
“Many broadcast stations in particular monitor NWS for EAS messages, especially those messages that relate to weather warnings and information,” he said. “Remember, this is our tax dollars at work here for emergency alert situations. When the system is down, it is not acting in the public interest.”
Digging into the story, Radio World learned that, while some broadcasters in southern parts of the country, like Florida, were surprised when NWR transmitters were suddenly taken offline, other states had carefully coordinated plans to make sure there were no gaps in EAS coverage.
Dave Arland is the executive director of the Indiana Broadcasters Association. He said that in Indiana, NWS decided to do upgrades on a regional basis so that the entire state’s NOAA weather radio service wasn’t offline at the same time.
“There probably is no ‘ideal’ time to take down service for a software upgrade,” said Arland, “but the weather service had other bureaus covering areas that were affected by the temporary downtime.”
Arland said the state broadcasters association worked with the two Indiana NWS offices to make sure that any weather emergency could also be transmitted through the internet-connected IPAWS system in the state’s Homeland Security department.
Many radio engineers, however, have bemoaned the fact that NOAA/NWS still does not automatically publish their alerts via IPAWS/CAP.
“One of the shortcomings of the current system is that NOAA weather alerts are NOT communicated through FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System that was established after the 9/11 disaster,” said Arland “In addition to local weather radio transmitters, I would hope that NOAA would consider offering severe weather alerts in concert with and through the IPAWS network. That’s a hole that needs to be plugged.”
Lack of Backups
In Alabama, John De Block, Warning Coordination Meteorologist (WCM) for the NWS Birmingham Office provided a different perspective. In an email shared with Radio World, De Block said the rolling NWR updates did not affect the transmitters around the state. It did, however, keep the NWS from issuing any weather alerts.
He commented: “This was largely an operating system update to ensure that we can continue to operate modern and updated internal software programs securely on properly maintained and updated systems.”
The NWS Birmingham Office, however, previously released a statement announcing that 10 of its NWR transmitters would be taken offline from May 19 through May 21.
When asked about backup systems De Block added: “Unfortunately, the nature of the upgrade prohibited any options for backup plans.”
De Block said the Birmingham office gave its media partners a heads up several weeks in advance, and again in an email the week before the scheduled outage.
Larry Wilkins, the director of engineering services for the Alabama Broadcasters Association, said the Alabama Emergency Management Agency has direct connection to the GSSNet Satellite system, and could issue any major alerts if needed.
“The GSSNet satellite system serves as origination and distribution for state and local alerts in the state,” said Wilkins. “At present we have 40 downlinks, which feed all local primary stations around the state. It is operated by the Alabama State Emergency Communications Committee (SECC).”
Email for the Win
In Washington state, Clay Freinwald said his local NWS offices’ chosen communication route is through the “Washington State EAS Remailer.” As the former longtime chair of the State Emergency Communications Committee in Washington state, he’s been watching the NOAA update activity in Spokane, Seattle and Portland.
“From what I have seen, these NWS offices have been very forthcoming about this work by communicating with the rest of us via this system,” said Freinwald.
He continued: “Perhaps our situation is unique in that we have had a good working relationship with the WCMs in these forecast offices for well over 20 years.
“Perhaps the reasons other areas have not been as informed is due to their lack of established communications systems for doing so,” said Freinwald. “This could be another indication of the rather dysfunctional EAS systems in those areas.”
Lowell Kiesow, chief engineer for KNKX(FM) in Tacoma, Wash., echoed Freinwald. He said the biggest difference in Washington state — in terms of how emergency communication is disseminated — is the remailer, which allows EAS constituents, including broadcasters, NWS and civil emergency managers, to easily communicate with each other.
“NWS sent out emails letting everyone know when planned radio outages would occur,” said Kiesow. “As of today, the Washington EAS remailer has 314 subscribers.”
Because the way each state NWS office communicates with its local broadcasters, emergency management offices, etc., varies, it might be hard to know where to look to get accurate, up-to-date information on inclement weather when NWR stations are taken offline.
Conflicting Information
After first hearing about these NWR software updates, Radio World spoke with NOAA Public Affairs Specialist Erica Grow Cei. During short periods of downtime, Grow Cei said there are other ways to receive life-saving weather information. These include text alerts, wireless emergency alerts and information via the NWS website and social media accounts.
“We always encourage people to have multiple ways to receive weather alerts,” she said. “NOAA shouldn’t be your only way.”
In recent days, however, various broadcast engineers have pointed out that, when these NWR transmitters are off the air, there would not be an EAS alert on radio, television or cable systems in those areas should there be a storm. Of course, in Indiana’s case, there are ways to manually push these alerts through with advanced notice and special coordination.
In a letter to the editor, veteran broadcast consulting engineer Alan Jurison said, while NOAA and NWS have published notices about these outages to other sources, the broadcast community should have been better warned.
In central Oklahoma, which has been experiencing more than its fair share of storm activity this past week, the NWS Norman Office has been putting out notice after notice on X to keep citizens alert.
As scheduled updates to Oklahoma’s NWR stations took place this past weekend, Jurison said NWS offices need to be extra careful when pointing people to emergency resources.
Due to technical difficulties, our warnings are not making it across to the NOAA Weather Radios. Please remember to have multiple ways to receive warnings with an increasing severe storm threat tonight. #okwx #txwx pic.twitter.com/Ul4S9RhFrX
— NWS Norman (@NWSNorman) June 7, 2025
“This graphic is factually inaccurate,” said Jurison, speaking about the above social media post. “Because when NOAA Weather Radio is down, the link to local TV and radio is down as well because NOAA/NWS still has still not implemented IPAWS/CAP alerting. Broadcasters were mandated to do this by 2012, with no government funding.
“The government 13 years later hasn’t solved this gap on their end,” he said. “This issue brings to light that we need NOAA/NWS to start participating and publishing these vital, life-saving alerts in IPAWS.”
Stormy Weather
Jurison said recent severe weather in his region did not prompt an EAS activation due to the outages, leaving most radio, television and cable systems unable to relay emergency alerts. He said the NOAA/NWS Binghamton, N.Y., office released a public information statement on Friday, May 30 — in what he called “an obscure text feed few people consume” — that said there would be maintenance from Monday, June 2, through Wednesday, June 4.
According to Jurison, a line of severe thunderstorms traversed the area on Thursday, June 5, in the evening, while NOAA Weather Radio was still off in the region. Jurison confirmed with several stations that they did not receive EAS for one Tornado Warning, one Flash Flood Warning and at least 10 Severe Thunderstorm Warnings that were issued.
Additionally, he said there was a Flash Flood Warning on Saturday, June 6, that also did not activate EAS due to a prolonged upgrade process. As of Sunday morning, June 7, Jurison said NOAA was still reporting the system offline, six days after the onset of the upgrade.
He said even though the updates took longer than what was published, and the system was still down, no further statements were issued.
“There are likely more examples out there of serious weather events that have not been EAS activated due to these upgrades, and that is a danger to public safety,” said Jurison. “In 2025, life-saving weather alerts should have redundant paths to reach the public via EAS.”
In total, 122 weather forecast offices are responsible for more than 1,035 NWR transmitters covering all 50 states, in addition to Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the U.S. Pacific territories.
As of Wednesday morning, 88 of those NWR transmitters were out of service — mostly in and around Missouri, Virginia and West Virginia.
In February, the Trump administration fired hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, raising concerns about the nation’s preparedness amid wildfire and tornado warnings. According to a PBS report in April, current and former NOAA employees said that reductions in the people and resources at NOAA could whittle away at the agency’s ability to carry out its mission.
According to its mission statement, the agency works to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean and coasts, as well as conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.
Comment on this or any article. Email [email protected].
