I'm actually getting my NOAA weather radio set up this morning. Would have already had it set up but needed to buy batteries yesterday. I'm glad I can get a signal for it here (unlike in OK) because I'm Dawn-less!

Busy and Larry still live down in that neck of the woods so your warnings aren't wasted.

Diane

Diane,

That's true, and I'll keep posting the warnings whenever I come inside and check the weather and see them. Hopefully Larry and Busy1 have better weather radio signals than you had when you lived in LeFlore County.

I thought of your old place and the issues with the NOAA alert radios not working a few weeks ago. We were at a big wildfire in NW Love County, near the Orr community, and we were so far out in the boonies that radio communications with the county dispatcher were sketchy to non-existent, as was cell phone service. Of course, all of us who were there could communicate with one another via the emergency radios, but we couldn't communicate with anyone else in the county via radio or with anyone at all via cell phone. (If you climbed a high hill, you had a chance of being able to pick up at least part of a radio dispatch from the dispatcher.) It reminded me of your NOAA weather radio issues.

I had noticed the same problem last fall when we were at a fundraiser for the Orr VFD....once we reached a certain distance west of Marietta, neither radios nor cell phones worked any more. It was just peculiar. You get used to having the ability to communicate with someone 24/7 and then suddenly you're in an area where that doesn't exist.

With the fire I previously mentioned, I had told Tim and Chris, who both were at work in Dallas, via text message that we were en route to a big fire west of town, so it drove them crazy for a couple of hours that they couldn't communicate with me to find out what was going on. I had a few text messages from them when I returned to civilization. It is easy to forget it now, but when we moved here in mid-winter of 1999, there was no cell phone service in our part of the county and it would be about 5 more years before we had reliable cell phone service at our house. For a while, we had cell phone service as close as the street in front of our house, so if you wanted to make a phone call you had to walk a few hunded feet down the driveway to the roadway. Then, later on, the cell signal reached our front porch and living room, but nowhere else. Now, we've hit the big time, and have cell phone service on all parts of our property...and it only took 11 or 12 years for it to improve to that point!

Today that line of storms is wreaking havoc across the south and southeast. I think we're lucky here that they started so far east and moved on before they could cause much damage. Some areas in Texas a bit east/southeast of our house had golfball-sized hall when these storms kicked up, and one small tornado damaged a barn. I would have been happy to have any kind of weather if only it would have brought us some rain!

Dawn

We have a little issue with the cell phones here as well. You can see people walking up and down the street talking on their cell because the signal in the house is not strong enough. We will probably always have a land line in addition to the cells. Various companies have strong signals around parts of the lake, but we haven't found one that is good everywhere.

Another Oklahoma place that I could never use a cell is from slightly west of Atoka, where I couldn't get a signal again until I was almost in Ardmore. I avoided that route at night because of the lack of communication.

We go camping a couple of times a year at Beavers Bend State Park, which is way down in the SE corner of the state, and for years we had to drive into Broken Bow to get cell phone service and even that was sketchy. Then a couple of years ago we could get it by driving up to the park entrance on Hwy 259, and now we have full phone service at the campground which is deep in park territory. My smart phone allows me to access weather info which makes me feel a lot better being down there in storm season, which we will be in a couple of weeks.

Suzie

Last fall, when we moved, we still didn't have cell service in the house. We had to go outside and up the hill a bit to make calls since we didn't have a land line. I feel pretty darned uptown here where I can get service all over the house (even if it is spotty)!

Diane

I did see the warning Dawn posted after it had already expired. Sure did'nt get any moisture out of it.

Looks like we are going into spring rather dry.

I dont get much down here if the weather is bad. Since we were forced into the digital tv, we get a spotty signal. Dial up internet at home, so to slow to wait on a weather map to load.

Dont have a weather radio except for the little walkie talkie. then you have to listen to the drone voice tell about every other place.

usually if i can see a radar image earlier in the day then i can kinda guess what we might get.Dont have a fraddy hole to hide in anyway.

I usually have ft smith radio station on most of the day. Although i dont put much stock in what Brad Garret has to forecast. He tends to exagerate alot.

Larry is probably another 60 or so miles east of me.

Keep on posting the warnings, it may save a life.

Busy1,

I'll keep posting them. Between the weather radio and our local emergency radios, I try to stay pretty current on the weather.

We had a small tornado cross the river west of our house last September. I was in the Fraidy Hole but our son and other storm spotters and storm chasers were running up and down the road in front of our house and the closest roads south and east of our house. The funnel touched down right at the river, but not near any homes, and then it mostly hopped and skipped its way from our county straight towards yours, but I don't think it caused any trouble, other than frightening everyone a bit. Supposedly it touched down in a couple of pastures north of Marietta but I don't know if that was verified. I don't remember there being any damage to speak of, but it sure scared a lot of folks. It made me glad we have a tornado shelter.

The good thing about that storm was that those of us in its path received 2 or 3" of rain in less than an hour, and only the folks in the very narrow "path" the funnel's storm traveled got that extra rain. So, while the rest of our county had about 6" of rain that month, a small number of us had about 9" of rain in the same period. That was the last really good rainfall we've had here though and it was very long ago.

I could endure another small, non-damaging tornado if it would bring us a whole lot of rain. I'm starting to feel like it is never going to rain again. We are so dry here and have been having wildfires. Tomorrow's a Very High to Extreme fire danger day, so y'all may not see me posting a tornado watch tomorrow....but a lot of us west of I-35 have a Fire Weather Watch or Red Flag Fire Warning for Friday. I'd rather have rain!

Our weather here today is supposed to be picture-perfect, which means sunny and clear, but we're at the point that a rainy day would be more perfect.

Dawn