WEATHER ALERT RADIO

msmith1199 wrote:
Just a tip for weather alerts, if you're going to be traveling in unfamiliar territory make sure to bring along good maps so you can translate the alerts. A few years back I was traveling through Wisconsin when the radio started broadcasting a tornado alert. It was great to get the alert, but they were giving directions of where the tornadoes were mostly by County and City location. So I'm driving down the road having no idea if I'm heading toward the tornadoes or away from them. Just by luck one of the broadcasts reported two tornadoes on the ground, 15 miles west of Dodgeville and they were heading east at 20 miles per hour. Just as that broadcast came out I was passing a sign that said Dodgeville City limits. So at least I knew they were 15 miles behind me and I was heading away from them at 60 and they were only doing 20. But if it weren't for that sign I wouldn't have had a clue where they were.

My wife was getting a little worried since we aren't used to tornadoes, so I told her just to keep an eye on what all the people with Wisconsin plates on their cars are doing. When they start pulling over and jumping into ditches we'll do the same. But they all just went about their business as usual. Didn't seem worried about the tornadoes at all.

I had the exact same thing happen in North Dakota one time. Horrendous storm hit and the warning gave the county and city but I didn't recognize the names.

So I don't use a radio warning system at all.