NOAA Weather Radio Outage and System Upgrade at NWS Birmingham May 19–21

The National Weather Service in Birmingham will undergo a mandatory, system-wide upgrade to its AWIPS (Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System) from Monday, May 19 through Wednesday, May 21. This scheduled upgrade is essential for maintaining the reliability and performance of critical forecast and warning systems—but it does come with some short-term service impacts.

Most notably, all NOAA Weather Radio transmitters managed by the Birmingham office will be off the air for the duration of the upgrade. A recorded message will play during the outage, instructing listeners to seek weather information through other trusted sources. Transmitters affected include Winfield, Oneonta, Birmingham, Anniston, Tuscaloosa, Demopolis, Selma, Montgomery, Auburn, and Texasville.

During this time, NWS Birmingham will maintain operations by remotely accessing a neighboring office’s AWIPS system, with forecasts and warnings issued by the Birmingham team. If needed, full service backup will be provided by NWS Peachtree City (Atlanta) or NWS Huntsville. Radar data from KBMX and KMXX will remain available, routed through other NWS offices, and weather balloon observations will be processed using an alternate method.

Partners and the public may notice increased call volume or questions about the outage, especially if storms occur during this period. NWSChat will remain operational for media and emergency managers, and a Public Information Statement is being broadcast in advance to alert NOAA Weather Radio users.

This is a critical national infrastructure update, and Birmingham is benefiting from lessons learned during earlier upgrades at other offices. While any system maintenance carries some uncertainty, every effort will be made to complete the upgrade promptly and resume full service by midweek.

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