National Weather Service installs new NOAA weather radio stations
AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) – The National Weather Service installed new NOAA Weather Radio stations in the area. The new installations will help improve the voice of the National Weather Service.
NWS Amarillo, along with officials from Dallam and Sherman counties, have recently installed two new NOAA weather radio stations. With the new stations installed near Dalhart and Stratford, individuals will be able to receive extended broadcasts of warnings, watches, and other information on their NOAA Weather Radio.
Out of the entire area, the portions of the northwest Texas Panhandle and the southwest Oklahoma Panhandle have historically had little to no coverage.
"Putting the transmitters in Dallam and Sherman counties, in conjunction with the help from those counties and some of our regional partners, are filling that gap with weather radio coverage," said NWS Amarillo Warning Coordination Meteorologist Joanne Culin.
This project has been a long time coming. The process started a little over a decade ago.
"The entire process really started about a year and a half ago, but it's been many years, going as far back as probably 10 or 15 years that we've been talking about wanting some transmitters to fill that broadcast gap," said Culin. "Unfortunately, there have been obstacles, monetary issues, but we finally got everything together."
Officials with NWS Amarillo said the stations are broadcasting with a power output of 1000 watts which generates a 40-mile radius listening area. The station located near Dalhart, Station WWQ50, operates on a frequency of 162.425 Megahertz. The second station in Stratford, Station WWQ51, operates on a frequency of 162.525 Megahertz.
"We always preach [to have] multiple ways to get weather information. Weather apps, TV, radio, weather sirens, are all great things to use and get weather information, but weather radio is yet another tool to get weather warnings," explained Culin. "The benefit of that is that it's inside of your home and it will wake you up in the middle of the night, if there's bad weather."
Officials with NWS Amarillo said they encourage listeners to use a receiver equipped with Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME). For individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, there are attachments available for their weather radio that have visual and sensory cues for alerting purposes.
"There are attachments that you can get for the weather radio that it plugs into your weather radio," said Culin. "It's got a strobe light and a pillow shaker that can alert you, in case you have a family member or friend who may be of the deaf and hard of hearing community."
