NOAA Weatheradio is now NOAA All-Hazards radio (AHR.) As of June 17, 2004, the switch was officially made. The programming didn’t change, and isn’t going to. You will still be able to receive forecasts, warnings and current conditions, but now the Department of Homeland Security will be able to access the system directly to provide terrorism alerts and important information about other man-made disasters.

Over 98 percent of the population of the United States now is able to receive the broadcasts, from over 900 stations. The goal is to extend the coverage area to include 99 percent of the population. If you own an existing Weatheradio receiver, you are already ready to receive the new messages.

The system is designed for Specific Area Messaging Encoding (SAME) technology that allows specially designed receivers to select the categories and locations of alerts that they receive.

This is all good news. But the bad news is that only 10% of the households and businesses in the country have the receivers. There are plans to institute programs to stimulate interest in the radios.

RCA is manufacturing televisions sets that have the AHR receivers built in. When alerts are issued, your broadcast will be interrupted and you will hear the alert. DirecTV has also announced plans to include AHR programming in its signal feeds.

AHR is a great and worthwhile thing. But it is missing one thing...J.B. Elliott excellent content. Guess we will all just have to enjoy it here.

Interesting online weather watcher report tonight from Todd Foisy, the ABC 33/40 Weather Watcher in Montana:

Billings, MT -
High: -2.9° F
Low: -9.9° F
Snow since last report: 2.2''
Storm Total: 4.1''
Snow Depth: 6.3''

We had steady light snow for about 42 hours straight, amounting to 4.1'' here. Some other areas not that far away got near 10''. It was actually a fairly high density snow since temperatures were too cold for the classic dendrites to form.

Temperatures continue to be bitterly cold with temperatures not even getting to 0° F the last two days. Miles City (about three hours east of us) had a record low of -34° F this morning, which was just 4° F away from their all-time record low. Some spots near Miles City had -40° F. We didn't get that cold last night because our skies were cloudy with snow. Tonight, we could get severely cold if it clears out. It's unclear if it will or not.
Todd Foisy - Fri Jan 14 19:56:21 2005

You can read all of our online weather watcher reports here:

http://theweathercompany.com/cgi-bin/wxwatcher.pl

A few notes from far and wide...

> On the summits of Big Island in Hawaii, the high wind warning has been cancelled. However, the summits are still covered by snow and ice! Yes, that happens occasionally in Hawaii.

> Churchill, Manitoba is on the shore of giant Hudson Bay in Canada. They bill themselves as the Polar Bear Capitol of the world. This afternoon, it was 31 below zero there with visibility only 1/2 mile in blowing snow and a wind chill of 66 below! Surely, even the polar bears are shivering just a bit.

> At 4 PM, CST, the warmest spot in the "Lower 48" was San Diego with 75.

> Atop Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, the temperature was in the 40s late last night and yesterday's warmth brought some melting. But this afternoon, it was 10 degrees with NW winds averaging 79 MPH and gusting to 92 MPH.

> USA cold spots this morning included Simms, Montana with 43 below zero and, in Alaska, Chandalar Lake had 60 below with a wind chill of 90 below!

> In NW Canada, Mayo, in the Yukon Territory, it was also 60 below zero with a very high barometer of 31.04 inches.

The afternoon video update is available now:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Had several notes this week from people asking about John Oldshue.

John has been filling in on the morning shift for five months. John was offered the morning position back in August, but turned it down. He has a successful business and a growing family, and he figured getting up at 3:00 a.m. every day was not in his best interest.

Since he had no time off over the holidays, he is taking a few weeks off to spend with his family. He will let us know later this month how he wants to be involved in our weather operation. He will always be a part of the family even if he scales back to part time. John has been with us since 1997, and is a great friend in addition to being a wonderful broadcast meteorologist.

While John is away, Brian Peters will be handling the weekend duty on Saturday and Sunday.

A little tired today... this has been a busy week. Spend some quality time with your family this weekend; I am planning on that. And, getting a little sleep tonight as well!

Once again thanks for all the kind comments and words of support concerning the severe weather coverage. We do really appreciate it.

The Friday morning video update is ready for viewing:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

First off, thanks to everyone who made some very kind comments here on the blog concerning that ugly e-mail message from the lady who missed her soap opera. They are really appreciated.

As I write this, Cutbank, Montana is at 31 degrees below zero with a wind chill index of -47. Mercy me. Thank goodness that air is headed east, and not south.

Cool and dry are the words for the next seven days. Actually the hardest part of the forecast involves the clearing today; the clouds are still hanging tough as I write this, and the forecast I wrote for today is "mostly sunny". There is no doubt the highest percentage of forecast boo-boos for me over the years involves the timing of the clearing process after a big storm system like yesterday.

Gonna try and grab a power nap here shortly and head out to see a big group of second graders at Greystone Elementary.