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Marsymarstoday at 3:50 AM0 repliesview on HN

I live in a city and have a weather radio.

For me, the value isn't in the weather report, but in the SAME alerts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_Area_Message_Encoding

I don't typically keep my phone on me when I'm in the house, but my weather radio is loud enough to hear anywhere in the house, the alerts it notifies for can be configured (unlike phone emergency alerts in Canada which all broadcast at the unconfigurable ICBM-incoming level, so the result is that authorities have to be very careful of alert fatigue), it never runs out of battery, never needs software updates, never has its OS take away app permissions, etc.

So far in the four years I've had the radio the worst it's alerted me for has been severe hail (thankfully), but that's saved me thousands of dollars in damage to my cars. (And gave me time to cover my tomato plants.)

I don't know of any way to reliably replicate this type of alert even with reliable internet.