[EAS] New weather event codes

[Sean Donelan]

On Fri, 17 Jun 2016, Tim Stoffel wrote:
> We forward the more important weather event codes. "High Wind Warning" 
> might be a useful event code for us, as we are indeed prone to high 
> winds. However, this is like a winter storm warning, flood warning, etc. 
> They are often issued one or more days in advance, and as such, are less 
> useful as an EAS alert message.

High Wind Warning has been an EAS event code since the first FCC order
in 1994.  As you point out, they aren't as useful as an EAS ("interrupt
programming for an emergency bulletin") event for broadcasters.

The new proposed weather event codes "Extreme Wind Warning,""Storm Surge 
Watch" and "Storm Surge Warning" are related to hurricanes and tropical 
storms.  I'll defer to NOAA/NWS need for additional specific event codes.
It allows more granulaty in NOAA/NWS products as part of weather radio and 
weather wire during hurricanes and tropical storms.

For most broadcasters and cable systems, the impact of new event codes 
will be negligible. The next time they update their EAS software or buy a 
new EAS box the new software will have a few more event codes available. 
But if they don't update their EAS boxes, most existing EAS boxes either 
ignore unknown event codes or just print a message in the log.  Some 
broadcasters didn't update their EAS boxes for 10 years after the 2002
event code changes, and only bought new EAS boxes to implement CAP.

As far as updating FIPS codes.  It would be nice if EAS vendors also 
updated their pre-programmed FIPS county and NOAA maritime code 
translations.  Some vendors seem to use very old FIPS/maritime code 
translations.  But again, for most broadcasters and cable systems those 
translation changes are negligible unless you are in an affected area 
with a changed FIPS code (a dozen codes or so out of 3,000+ FIPS/Maritime 
codes).  You can usually configure code translations manually in EAS 
boxes without a software update.