Here also, somebody figured out it could make 4 different sounding bursts.
So we have
Severe weather
Tornado
Fire
Monthly Test
Every time it goes off the town Facebook page goes crazy with "why is the siren going off"

And when it goes off it runs for 2 minutes, not 20 seconds.

I'm about 6 miles from one, I can't hear it unless I'm outdoors.

Ours is the same one for volunteer fire or ems. They use a different pattern for tornado.

Don't even ask . . .

Not 100% correct anymore.  They use "radar detected rotation" now as the low bar.  Cloud rotation is not the same thing as a tornado on the ground.  Then they predict something like a 60 mile path and send out warnings.  If the radar rotation stops a couple miles later they leave the warnings for those 60 miles in place any way.

They also over react based out of fear.  Also rotation is not a tornado.  They now issue warnings based on rotation.  Definition of tornado: "A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud".

The conditions persisted in that warning polygon / series of polygons.

Their "radar indication" assessment was correct.  The survey teams found damage on the ground consistent with a tornado.

"Radar confirmed" is really bad.  It means you aren't there to get the message.  Because you are a radar return.

There's 1 pretty close to my house. It's loud as hell and you can hear it with windows open or closed. The only time it gets used is for monthly testing (1st Wednesday of every month), if there's been a tornado sighted in the area, or if there's been a prison break (happened twice in about 30 years).

The thing about hearing so often you might ignore it when it really matters.....if there's bad weather outside, you're going to know it, anyway. And if that siren goes off, you know that's your queue to get somewhere safe. And we've only ever had to do that maybe 3 times (the last time was back in 2011 when that big-ass tornado came through Tuscaloosa and pretty damn close to where I am).

As far as the monthly testing goes, you get used to it and most time I don't even notice it.

BUT.....we also have a weather radio that stays "on" and will sound a siren even if the actual siren never goes off. It's a NOAA radio and if there's bad weather, we turn it on so we can hear the latest info.

Weather radio is far better

But, you get Warnings for other counties, anything in the broadcast region.  The sirens are commanded by your own EMA and most likely only for the areas inside/adjacent the Warning geometry.

The county survey team spent two days looking for damage and found none.  NWS came back and then claimed to find some EF-1 damage in one area.  

My question is after the radar indication disappeared in under a minute, why did they keep the warning in place for over an hour for the next 5 counties?  Even the local weatherman that was broadcasting questioned why they were continuing the warnings after there was no continued/additional reporting of rotation.  

They are extremely handy if you live in a tornado prone area.  I grew up in OK and it always seems the twisters hit when you're sleeping or otherwise not monitoring the weather.  It's nice to have some warning when they are coming.  

It used to be if a tornado was in the same county the sirens would go off even if you are nowhere near it.  They've since changed the system so if the sirens go off, it's close enough you better be in your hidey hole if you have one.  

Now that the dems have potentially brought us to the brink of WWIII, a siren has a whole new meaning.  They'll probably have to start doing nuclear bomb drills again in schools...

Ours are audible tested every Saturday at noon for 3 minutes. I only notice if they aren't tested.

Our town hasn't had a big one since 2013. Which is nice.

I'm in Hutto.

I was at the Eastview HS football field one Saturday when they had the monthly test. Fuck that.

Most common sirens are in the 127-135 dB @ 100ft range.

I never could understand whatever they're saying after the test. too much echo it's all garbled.

the Vibrant Ones that manage the sirens haven't been doing the test every month for a long time. last week they got off their asses to test it for whatever reason and you couldn't hardly hear the damn thing.

not going to rely on it.

How else am I supposed to know to run outside and watch?

When I lived in the midwest, they were great...when they worked. Half the time they were undermaintained and broken. Now I live in the desert, so that's how I voted the poll!

Tornado sirens used to alert citizens of a community to take immediate shelter because a tornado is imminent is a good thing.

Now comes my grandpa Simpson oldmanyellsatcloud.jpg rant...

Back when I grew up, if you heard a tornado siren you got your ass to safety. You knew exactly what it meant  

Nowadays? They blow them if someone had a bad case of the shits from eating Taco Bell.

But seriously, they blow them if there’s a thunderstorm inbound, hail inbound, wind picks up, zee Germans, and occasionally...the intended use...a tornado.

So who the hell really knows what you’re supposed to be doing because it could be pea size hail or an F5.
So instead you flip on the TV or pull out your phone and get on the weather app to decide whether you should huddle you and your 2.5 kids and the dog in the hall closet, or take down the pool umbrella because it’s windy.

/end rant

I live in Florida and my county doesn’t have tornado sirens. Never even seen a tornado and I work out of my car.

There is a tornado siren about 200 yards from my house.  It hasn't ever alerted me for anything that matters (and I spent 7 days without electricity after a tornado event many years ago).  I have a programmed weather radio in my house that I pay attention to and provides alerts a lot sooner than the siren.  My Boxer doggie doesn't even wake up when they do the monthly tests on that siren.  It doesn't wake me if it goes off at night and I am in a deep sleep or passed out after participating in a "Friday night what are you drinking thread".

Sirens are only useful for warning those that may be outside at the time with no other means of communication.  In todays world, that is limited.  Kids never leave the yard to neighborhood these days, damn near everyone with a job has a cell phone, etc.  Weather sirens are useless.  The money is better spent on subsidizing weather radios for those in remote areas with limited means (much cheaper than sirens but still questionable because choices?).  Those in metro areas need to suck it up and take responsibility for theirselves.  

Anyway, JMHO.....

Is that....FOUR cyclones coming out of the cell?

Hutto is too poor for sirens, they spent all their money on severance packages for Otis Jones and his lawsuits

We ha e them in my area. Any warning beats no warning.

In Iowa,

Tornado sirens mean to look outside and see why they are going off..... sad but true.


Heck just today in my town, they malfunctioned and were going off for 20 or so minutes....

It's a judgement call.  Somebody at that NWS office has to make that call.  It's a judgement call, and often an imperfect one.  

If the NWS calls it wrong
(A) people are inconvenienced
(B) people don't get the alert, or don't get it in time, and may die as a result.

I've been here for (B).  A Warning polygon had not been extended because the NWS office was either overwhelmed, or had made the conscious judgement that conditions for rotation no longer existed. So, the Warning was left to expire, without extension.  Five minutes after a new Warning polygon had been extended into the next county, two dozen people were dead.  That's not hyperbole.  It was five minutes.  

The tornado was moving at 60-70mph.  Everything looked tornadic in all directions I could see.  Midday.  If it wasn't for the radar reports, I wouldn't have known where this was.  I'll never forget looking at the screen as the radar returns changed from red to white.

I wasn't in the Warning area.  The sirens here never went off.  There was no tornado damage up the road, where I lived.  Down the road, the sirens did alert, just a couple miles down the road - 12 funnel cloud diameters from my house - that's how tailored these Warning regions are. If I wasn't going out of my way to actively following this event, I wouldn't have known anything until the winds kicked up.  But, as it was, I could see the cell vector for the preceding tornado, and the straight line vector had it passing ten blocks from me.  But no Warning.  Because NWS gets complaints when they inconvenience people.  Another cell, maybe a half mile SE of the vector I was watching picked up the torch and became the EF4, that had an ever so slightly different path, and killed two dozen people.  From the time the Warning was issued for that tornado to the time where it killed the people in greatest concentration was 5 minutes, maybe 6.  That's how fast the thing came down.  The tornado preceding it didn't cause much damage, if any.  This one blew up fast.

It's a judgement call by the NWS guys.  They are trying to alert as few people as possible, because the alerts cause disruptions in people lives and commerce.  Thirty years ago, Warning areas were done by county, and that put too many people on alert unnecessarily, caused to much disruption, and desensitized people to the Warnings.  For the past 10 or 15 years, these Warnings have gone to polygons representing the approximate path of concern to alert as few people as needed.

you guys act like this is a big deal.
wake up
check phone/TV/radio
make decision
roll over and go back to bed or get up and take cover.

My town sees some smallest tornados every now and then, but last year we got hit with a massive and jumping EF-4. I was out at a bar so I was able to watch it on my radar but thankfully the sirens woke my dad up. The tornado missed the house but it wasn't by much. Literally talking in feet here.

they save lives. Thats a fact. Are they over used in places? sure, but it takes about 10 seconds and a little common sense to figure out what is going on.

Central Ohio, they test them every Wednesday at noon for a few minutes.

Otherwise, they only go off when there is tornadic activity in the vicinity.  They save lives.

Find out how your local Emergency Management Agency handles the sirens.

For instance, here's Tuscaloosa County, AL:


A tsunami for Tuscaloosa, Alabama, would be a really bad day.  Probably warrants a siren.  Or something.  Worse yet, my county is closer to the Gulf than Tuscaloosa, but my EMA only sounds the sirens for tornados.  I guess we've got a fuck it attitude towards tsunamis.  And, I'm ok with that.

Bottom line is that every county/municipal area has a different setup and plan.  Find out how yours works.  Find out the difference between an NWS Watch and Warning.  Because, I think a number of you are going off of some bad information.

I think the city won a lawsuit getting that severance package back.

Eta- I guess not, lawsuit is still ongoing.

I understand what they are trying to accomplish.  I didn't say it was useless but they go off here so much they just mean check the weather.  I've lived in my current location for 20 years now and the sirens have gone off over a dozen times.  The number of times a tornado actually came within 20 miles of my location, zero.  I know they are trying to be cautious but it just causes people to ignore it.  As I said in the Maysville tornado thread they need another warning level.  The watch is fine as it puts people on notice the weather for the day could turn bad.  The "seek shelter now" should be the highest level that has a high level of confidence related to it.  Then they need a middle layer of "conditions are right that a tornado could happen in the next hour" so that people know serious weather is coming in the next hour and plan accordingly.  I think that would help with the desensitization as the "NWS seek shelter immediately" warning wouldn't be blaring for an hour and then nothing happens.

Have them here in MN. Always go off but never a tornado. Pretty much a signal to go outside and watch a storm. But they are a warning (severe weather) not signaling an imminent threat.

I live a few hundred yards from the county line.  I heard them from the next county one day.  I was trying to figure out what the noise was for about 10 minutes, until I walked outside and stood on the driveway.  It was sunny and calm except for the distant sirens. They had a tornado pass through the far side of the county.

Noon on the first Monday of the month here. I thought it was the same statewide.

Live too far away from anything that would have a siren. I used to work where I could hear the montly test of the sirens in case Dow Chemical had an ammonia leak.

Memorial day 2019, closest to me started 4 miles east of me and went east for miles.
I live west of Dayton near I70.

Negative, the new ones you program by county. I'm in the middle of Jefferson county so that's the only time mine goes off. If I was in west Jefferson i would add Tuscaloosa.

I thought most everywhere had them.

I guess my perception is clouded from living in Kansas my whole life.

The only time I've ever heard sirens around here was when I lined near the nuke plant and they would test those.

None close enough to hear well here. You can faintly hear them if you really try.

Useless.

If a radar indicated tornado can die in 1 min (I believe radar sweeps are longer than a minute, but whatever), it can spin up in a minute.  The tornados here in Texas this week, in specific the Round Rock tornado, spun up in between radar sweeps.  The tornado was on the ground and flinging cars for as much as 5 minutes before a warning was issued.  Further, local weather stations dont have the latest whizbang radars that NWS has.  Another issue is that severe weather event, NWS people can get overwhelmed.  I am willing to bet money that is what happened in Texas this week.  Storms were shitting tornados in the slight areas BEFORE storms shit tornados in the enhanced and moderate risk areas.  It didnt help that they had to dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge a tornado that ran through their parking lot too.

I was in a building that got hit by a nader in 2017.

The weather event was unexpected so I guess they didn't have anyone ready to kick the sirens on.  Totally unexpected spin up.

Power flashed a few times, went out, heard arcing, opened to door to see what was happening and looked right into the nader as it started to hit the building - and got blasted by flying debris.  Pulled the door shut, stepped away from the windows, waited for it to pass.  Was gone in a few seconds.

I've lived with them all but 2 years of my life.  

I'm indifferent.

LOUD SIRENS SAVE LIVES