Weather radar systems for the National Weather Service (NWS) experienced a mass outage Sunday, at least the third such incident in a month.
Alerts shared on social media suggested that roughly half of all NWS weather radars experienced a major outage in the early hours Monday morning as major storm systems developed across the Plains. Though no extreme weather was thought to be occurring at the time of the outage, this is far from the first time such an issue has appeared to occurr.
🚨#BREAKING: The National Weather Service is currently experiencing a widespread radar outage event, with half of its radars are down
Currently, approximately half or almost of all National Weather Service weather radars are experiencing a widespread… pic.twitter.com/Vw3icSmwGK
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 15, 2024
Meteorologists in the St. Louis region and surrounding counties were left blind late on Monday, April 1, when NWS radars went down for an unknown reason, according to KSDK.
During the night in question, a major storm system hit close to St. Louis that was big enough for a tornado to form. Due to the radar outage, warning sirens did not go off and everyone living within the region was put in grave danger. Local meteorologists apparently tracked the system by just studying lightning strikes alone. Some 17 tornadoes touched down during the outage, according to the Paducah Sun.
We’ve received a few questions regarding the status of our radar. Due to a comms outage, radar data from AKQ/DOX are not able to be disseminated at this time. We are still able to view it locally, though, and will be monitoring the potential for severe weather later tonight. pic.twitter.com/PL8W2ElRKz
— NWS Wakefield (@NWSWakefieldVA) April 11, 2024
On April 11, a radar and communications outage hit NWS Wakefield, Virginia, through to Dover, Delaware, as data could not be disseminated during a period when a severe thunderstorm was expected in the area. (RELATED: Destruction Plagues US As Multiple Extreme Weather Events Strike)
It is unclear why these systems keep going offline. But every time they do, the risk to human life and infrastructure goes up significantly. Knowing the weather forecast is so vital to human activity that one of the first things the Nazis did when they invaded Amsterdam was to remove it from the newspaper.
The National Weather Service did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for further information.