[EAS] NWS Alerts and messaging

[Sean Donelan]

News stations with full or part-time meteorologists almost always 
purchase a commercial weather wire system.  The weatherwire feed is much 
more detailed than EAS.  Weather Forcast Offices also operate a weather 
chat system with broadcast meteorologists in severe weather areas.

The commercial weatherwire systems have nice on-screen graphics, and can 
even generate drop-ins for scheduled news breaks.  If the weather is bad 
enough, news stations usually go wall-to-wall coverage.  These stations 
don't rely on EAS for weather warnings, except maybe as a backup if the 
weatherwire fails.

My expectation is stations using EAS for weather alerts instead of buying 
a commercial weatherwire system, aren't news stations. They believe in 
some public service obligations but aren't in the full-time news 
business.  They may be ok with carrying a few critical alerts, mainly to 
protect their own reputations if a bunch of people die during an event 
and don't want to answer questions why they didn't broadcast that alert. 
But non-news stations won't be happy interrupting programming multiple 
times an hour about something "far away."