From May 19th until May 21st, the NWS will be conducting a mandatory systems upgrade at the NWS Birmingham office. This upgrade is crucial to ensure the warning dissemination systems, radar, and other systems within the NWS are up to date and properly functioning. This system upgrade will take NWS Birmingham completely offline during this time period. However, they will have meteorologists staffed at the office, and will be using a neighboring offices system to ensure there are as minimal disruptions as possible, with a continuation of forecast products, watches, and warnings.
The biggest impact to the public will be the fact that weather radios will be off the air during this time period. So no watches or warnings will be sent to weather radios in the NWS Birmingham county warning area. Thus, we strongly urge you to find backup ways to receive important weather information. These include enabling wireless emergency alerts on your cellphones, staying tuned to local tv stations, and downloading a reliable weather app that can send alerts during severe weather…