It is my understanding that severe weather alerts at the panel have zip code triggers based on NWS warnings. However, my panel seems to be triggering for any alerts in my county, rather than my specific zip code. I live in one of the largest counties in the country, so this is not precise enough and is resulting in alerts that do not affect my area. Noticed this on Saturday most recently. We got 3 tornado warning alerts at the panel, but only one of those affected my zip code. A similar situation occurred two Sundays ago. Can this be troubleshooted or recalibrated? Otherwise I may have to turn off this feature, which I don’t really want to do.
It is in general a county-wide alert. The NWS sends out alerts for counties, and anyone with a zip code fully or partially in that county will receive an alert, as far as it has been explained in the past.
In larger counties (geographically) this might result in a wider threshold for which alerts you receive, depending on how the zip codes are laid out.
Can’t speak for other areas, but NWS warnings are more precise that the county level where I live. Two ways I am confirming this:
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Each time the panel sounds a weather alert, l go to the NWS web site and input my zip to see if the alert pertains to my area. For most of these alerts, my zip code is not included but I can see what part of the county is.
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Cell phones sound off these days based on local NWS warnings, and my phone does not alarm at the county level the way the panel does.
There would seem to be an easy way for the panel to be more precise if it is, in fact, relying on NWS for these alerts.
There would seem to be an easy way for the panel to be more precise if it is, in fact, relying on NWS for these alerts
Yes, Alarm.com uses NWS alerts to generate these messages to the panel.
I can view the NWS reports that come in on an account basis. It looks like a Tornado warning was issued for your county, and based on the original report on 6/26/2021, the original sighting was within 5-10 miles.
I am happy to provide all feedback to Alarm.com, or enhancement requests. I’ll mention the NWS cell alerts you reference to see if there is any way to follow those.
I’m not able to further adjust sensitivity in any way at this time, however, so if you do not wish for severe weather alerts to be active these can be disabled at any time through the System Manager here.