The Siren Board

Yesterday my Midland WR300 sounded for a flood warning and as soon as they were finished reading that warning they sound the alarm for another flood warning why couldn't they just read both warnings after one alarm?

If the warnings were for different counties, they have to send the SAME data burst for that county to activate receivers there for folks that have them set up to alert for only their county. Otherwise their receivers won't go off.

Bradhig has a point. The warnings were both flood warnings, so why couldn't they have issued one warning for both counties instead of issuing two separate warnings? Both counties' receivers would have still gotten the warning.

We have this problem where I live too. It didn't start until they started using the computer voice to read the warnings. It isn't as bad as it used to be, but it still happens, especially during severe weather events where there's a fast moving line of storms.

An unavoidable problem that can also occur is that two different types of warnings, such as for a severe thunderstorm, and for a flash flood, are issued for the same county at the same time. Before the EAS, the NWS could sound the alarm once, and combined both warnings into a single warning. I remember that happening when I was about 13 years old. Now, with the EAS, that is impossible, because of the way the SAME headers are constructed. They now have to activate the EAS for the thunderstorm warning, then activate it again for the flash flood warning.

In some areas, 2 different weather service offices broadcast warnings on the same transmitter. If this is the case, the warnings will come through separately. If they want one warning to last longer than another, they will issue them separately. Some office also split off river flood warnings for different major rivers, but will combine the flood warnings for different points along the same river.