TIP #30: Non-Weather
Emergency Messages

During 2021, National Weather Service (NWS) offices will implement a new capability allowing Non-Weather Emergency Messages (NWEMs) to be channeled from IPAWS to NWS for broadcast over NOAA Weather Radio (NWR). This capability is a replacement to the discontinued HazCollect program.

NWS plans to conduct live testing of the new capability with select IPAWS COGs in October and November of 2020. Operational rollout is expected during the first half of 2021. The final step of operational rollout requires local configuration of systems at each local NWS Weather Forecast Office (WFO) so exact dates for operations will be determined by each WFO.

During the scheduled live testing, COGs will send Demo/Practice (DMO) and Administrative Message (ADR) messages to IPAWS, where they will be validated and sent to NWS. NWS will process the messages and broadcast them over NWR. Select broadcasters will also monitor NWR and validate receipt of the associated Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) that would normally be used for EAS activation.

During this live testing period, any Alerting Authority with NWEM permissions may see an alert go out over NWR. However, this capability is not expected to be operational 24/7 during the test period, so please continue to utilize other alerting channels to ensure delivery of NWEMs.

If you want to prevent an alert from being sent over the IPAWS NWEM channel to the NWS and NWR you may apply “BLOCKCHANNEL = NWEM” in your alerting software. Please contact your alerting software provider for details on how to do this.

Once testing is complete, we will provide more information about when National Weather Service offices will enable 24/7 operation and alerting authorities can expect their valid NWEM to be delivered over NWR.

Please contact Mike.Gerber@noaa.gov for additional information about NWEM broadcast over NWR.

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