[EAS] EAS use of unofficial FIPS names

Sean Donelan sean at donelan.com
Thu Oct 7 08:59:33 CDT 2021


This is one of those things 90% of SECC/LECC never need to think about, 
but seems critical to 10%.  FIPS county-equivalents are weird. But the 
U.S. Board of Geographic Names was created for a reason, some consistency 
was needed for maps (like standard time zones for railroads). Due to 
saturation use by National Weather Service in EAS, locals seem to be used 
to official county names in EAS alerts.

With less than a dozen exceptions,

1. New York City borough names versus county names.

2. Washington, DC 'county' versus District of Columbia

3. Hawai'i major island names versus county names.

4. State of Rhode Island (no one used the full official name, and its been 
changed anyway).

and a few when EAS manufactuers hadn't updated their software with the new 
official name.

Did I miss any?



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