Weather radio

A weather radio is a specialized radio receiver that is designed to receive a public broadcast service, typically from government-owned radio stations, dedicated to broadcasting weather forecasts and reports on a continual basis, with the routine weather reports being interrupted by emergency weather reports whenever needed. Weather radios are typically equipped with a standby alerting function—if the radio is muted or tuned to another band and a severe weather bulletin is transmitted, it can automatically sound an alarm and/or switch to a pre-tuned weather channel for emergency weather information. Weather radio services may also occasionally broadcast non-weather-related emergency information, such as in the event of a natural disaster, a child abduction alert, or a terrorist attack.

They generally broadcast in a pre-allocated very high frequency (VHF) range using FM. Usually a radio scanner or a dedicated weather radio receiver is needed for listening, although in some locations a weather radio broadcast may be re-transmitted on an AM or FM broadcast station, on terrestrial television stations, or local public, educational, and government access (PEG) cable TV channels or during weather or other emergencies.

Weather radio receivers

Weather radios are generally sold in two varieties: home (stationary) or portable use. Portable models commonly offer specialized features that make them more useful in case of an emergency. Some models use crank power, in addition to mains electricity and batteries, in case of a power outage.

Smaller hand-held weather receivers generally do not support the Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) alert type encoding (though there are some that do) but allow hikers and other explorers to listen to weather reports without packing a heavy and bulky base station radio. Some models have a built-in flashlight and can double as a cellphone charger. Some also serve as a more general emergency radio and may include multiband and two-way communication capability. "Scanner" radios designed to continuously monitor the VHF-FM public service band are already able to receive weather channels.

A Gorman-Redlich CRW-S weather radio

Besides SAME alerting capability, modern weather radio receivers, especially those that are compliant with CTA standard 2009-B, may include visual alerting elements (e.g., multicolored LED indicator lights) and allow for the use of external devices (e.g., pillow vibrators, bed shakers, strobe lights, and loud sirens, which attach via an accessory port) to alert those who are deaf or hearing impaired.

Global weather radio services

Both private and commercial seagoing vessels need accurate weather reports, in order to avoid storms that might damage or capsize the vessel, or make paying passengers uncomfortable. One such service is Navtex, which is a low-frequency facsimile radio service.

North American weather radio services

National weather radio frequencies
for U.S., Canada, and Mexico
Frequency	WX channel^[1]	Marine channel	Radio preset
162.400 MHz	WX2	36B	1
162.425 MHz	WX4	96B	2
162.450 MHz	WX5	37B	3
162.475 MHz	WX3	97B	4
162.500 MHz	WX6	38B	5
162.525 MHz	WX7	98B	6
162.550 MHz	WX1	39B	7
161.650 MHz	WX#	21B	blank
161.750 MHz	WX#	23B	blank
161.775 MHz	WX#

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