Across the country, the familiar crackle of NOAA Weather Radio has gone quiet for some, as the National Weather Service grapples with a string of transmitter outages. From rural Nebraska to coastal North Carolina, stations critical for delivering real-time weather alerts have been knocked offline, forcing residents to scramble for other ways to stay informed about looming storms and hazards.
The outages, tied to a mix of maintenance and software upgrades, have hit at a dicey time. Spring’s severe weather season is revving up, with tornadoes, flash floods, and thunderstorms already battering parts of the Midwest and South. On April 28, the National Weather Service’s Valley, Nebraska, office announced all its transmitters were down for a scheduled software update to the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, expected to last through April 30. The upgrade aims to sharpen forecasting tools, but it’s left listeners in the region without their go-to source for warnings.
Elsewhere, the story’s similar. In Windsor, North Carolina, the local transmitter was intermittently offline on April 28 for routine maintenance, with nearby stations in Norfolk and Margarettsville picking up some of the slack. In Texas, the Childress station went dark on April 23, with no clear timeline for its return. Kentucky’s Frankfort, Elizabethtown, Campbellsville, and Burkesville transmitters were also reported out, leaving swaths of the state in a weather-information blackout. The National Weather Service has pointed listeners to alternatives like local media and online forecasts at weather.gov, but for many, those options don’t match the immediacy of a weather radio’s piercing alert tone.
These aren’t isolated hiccups. The NOAA Weather Radio network, with over 1,000 transmitters blanketing 97% of the U.S. population, operates on a shoestring. The system broadcasts on seven VHF frequencies between 162.400 and 162.550 MHz, delivering forecasts, warnings, and emergency alerts 24/7. A full-power transmitter typically covers a 40-mile radius, though terrain, antenna quality, and even a listener’s radio setup can shrink or stretch that range. When a station goes down, gaps in coverage can leave entire counties vulnerable, especially in remote areas where cell service is spotty and internet access isn’t a given.
The outages underscore the network’s fragility. While the National Weather Service has technicians working to restore service, no firm dates have been set for many affected stations. Listeners are urged to tune into backup transmitters where available or rely on commercial media for updates. For now, communities in impacted areas are left piecing together their weather plans without the steady voice of NOAA’s automated broadcasters—nicknamed “Tom,” “Donna,” and “Paul”—that usually guide them through the storm.