The National Weather Service (NWS) plans to conduct a statewide tornado drill in Indiana Tuesday, March 16, at 10:15 a.m. ET.
At that time, the Allen County Skywarn® net plans to activate in directed net mode, according to net manager Jay Farlow, W9LW. The net control station will encourage operators to make simulated severe weather reports, using time-event-location (TEL) format. As usual, the net will occur on 146.88 MHz. If for any reason that repeater is unavailable, the net will operate on 146.76 MHz.
During the drill, NWS will issue a “test” tornado warning, which will activate NOAA Weather Radio receivers, according to NWS warning coordination meteorologist Michael Lewis, KG4KJQ. The test warning will not, however, automatically trigger broadcast Emergency Alert System alerts, or Wireless Emergency Alert messages, Lewis wrote. Depending on policies and configurations of equipment and software, the test warning might activate automated outdoor warning sirens in some communities and trigger notifications by some text message services, according to Lewis.