NOAA Weather Radios (NWR)

Programming & Local Information

 

📻NOAA Weather Radio (NWR)

The National Weather Service weather radio transmitters broadcast 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The routine broadcast includes the up-to-the-minute weather forecast and hourly weather conditions from selected cities around the region. Special climatological data and weather facts are also broadcast daily. During periods of inclement weather, Watches, Warnings, and Advisories take precedence. This may cause regularly scheduled programming to be suspended until conditions improve. During severe weather, National Weather Service personnel will activate a warning alarm tone which will be intercepted by specially built receivers.

NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) service to a county/parish depends on reliable signal reception, which typically extends in about a 40 mile radius from the transmitter, assuming level terrain. Counties without NWR coverage or partial NWR coverage will be so indicated. Some counties or parts thereof, especially in mountainous areas, that are listed as having NWR coverage may not have reliable reception in some locations due to signal blockages and/or excessive distance from the transmitter.

• FAQ
• Find My Station
• About NWR
• Alert Information

❌NWR Outages:

View the latest NOAA Wx Radio Outages in the link below:

• NWR Outages
• Report Outages

🧏Deaf & Hard of Hearing:

• NWR for Deaf and Hard of Hearing

🖥️SAME: 

What is NWR SAME? NWS highly recommends your NOAA Weather Radio contains SAME code messaging. 

NWS SAME code messaging is the digital “header code” that NOAA Weather Radio (and the Emergency Alert System) sends right before and after an alert. It’s called SAME = Specific Area Message Encoding.

It’s basically how the broadcast says, in machine-readable form:

• What the alert is (event code, like TOR for Tornado Warning)

• Where it applies (a 6-digit location code for a county—or even part of a county)

• How long it should stay active on your device (the “purge” time / valid duration)

• When it was issued (UTC timestamp)

• Who originated it (e.g., WXR for National Weather Service)

That’s what lets a weather radio alarm only for the counties you programmed, instead of waking you up for everything in the transmitter’s coverage area. 

What a SAME “location code” looks like

A SAME location code is PSSCCC (6 digits):

• P = county partition (0 = whole county; 1–9 = partial-county areas)

• SS = 2-digit state FIPS

• CCC = 3-digit county FIPS

Example (whole county): 0 22 071 → 022071 (Louisiana state FIPS 22, county 071). (Example shown for format only.)

• SAME Location Code with a Non-Zero First Digit
• More information can be viewed here.

NWS New Orleans/Baton Rouge Station id locations map:

NWS New Orleans/Baton Rouge SAME code locations by county/parish:

Louisiana (22 Parishes in the wfo lix area):

Mississippi (8 Counties in the WFO LIX area):

View more areas by visiting the NOAA Weather Radio County Coverage by State.

---

 

[ Back to Top ]