Get your NOAA weather radio programmed 3/31

Do you have a programmable NOAA weather radio but having a hard time programming it? Good news, the Heartland StormTeam is going to help you.

Bring your NOAA weather radio to the Orscheln store in Sikeston, Missouri from 10am-1pm Saturday, April 2 and the Heartland StormTeam will program your radio. Bob Reeves, Brian Alworth, myself along with meteorologists from the Paducah National Weather Service office will be there to program weather radios.

What do I mean by programming your weather radio? Most NOAA weather radios have a built in technology called Specific Area Message Encoding. S.A.M.E. allows you to program specific counties you want your radio to monitor for alerts. Some radios will even let you specify specific types of watches and warnings to alert.

What do you need to bring with you?

• Bring your NOAA weather radio
• Bring a fresh set of batteries for your radio. (Usually AA batteries but check your specific radio's directions to see what it takes.)
• Know what county you reside.

If you do not have a NOAA weather radio but would like to purchase one you are in luck. Orscheln will have the StormTeam Weather Radio by Midland available for purchase at the reduced price of $29.99. You can also purchase batteries at Orscheln if you need a fresh set.

It might be a good time to go out and pick up a radio if you don't have one as it appears we could see a round of severe weather Monday across southeast Missouri, southern Illinois, western Kentucky, northwest Tennessee and northeast Arkansas. More on that over the coming days...