Live in Oklahoma. Sirens get tested daily at noon. State doesn’t fuck around.
Every day??
Most days have a Noon, yes.
Yep, you always know when noon hits. If you’re outside of course. It’s not too disruptive inside.
LMAO, they test the sirens once a month on Wednesday, for anyone unfamiliar.
(Edited, I live real close to one, but I don’t really pay attention to the day or frequency. Tons of trains around too, you learn to drown it out.)
I lived in a small farm town on the Mississippi river in the Midwest for years. Their siren would literally go off at 6pm every, single, day. (Albeit very briefly) Something about letting people outside know it was time to head home for supper.
Sundown towns… were all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States… The term came into use because of signs that directed “colored people” to leave town by sundown.
The towns of Minden and Gardnerville in Nevada had an ordinance from 1917 to 1974 that required Native Americans to leave the towns by 6:30 p.m. each day. A whistle, later a siren, was sounded at 6 p.m. daily, alerting Native Americans to leave by sundown. In 2021, the state of Nevada passed a law prohibiting the appropriation of Native American imagery by the mascots of schools, and the sounding of sirens that were once associated with sundown ordinances. Despite this law, Minden continued to play its siren for two more years, claiming that it was a nightly tribute to first responders.
claiming that it was a nightly tribute to first responders.
what a bunch of bootlicking fuckwits.
bet none of them have ever volunteered in their lives no less.
Ours get tested on Saturday
Midwesterner that gets noon on Friday tests here. I got the joke tho.
Ours is Mondays!
Depends on the region. Some places will test it on noon on Sundays. The place I’m currently at will test it once a month on Wednesday at 11 am.
But what if a tornado actually appears at that time?
Then they nuke the tornado
They cancel it if the weather isn’t good, just in case they need it for real.
The image says what happens. It can’t hurt you, it’s against the rules.
Like in 2017 in Mexico when the earthquake happened like two hours after their yearly earthquake drill. People figured it out pretty quickly, but I’ve never been in a tornado so I don’t know if it’d be as easy to tell as an earthquake.
What if it’s just a very thorough drill?
They’ll likely run a different signal than the normal test. If, for example, they normally test in “alert” (steady) then they might use the “attack” (wavering up and down) signal instead.
Then the Tornado Guards will shoo it away.
It runs for maybe a minute at 1pm. If it goes off before or after, it’s not a test.
1pm local time on the first Wednesday of the month in my state.
The last two places I’ve lived choose a specific Wednesday of the month to test, and always at noon.
They still test in rain, so every so often you still feel that mild panic again until you look at the clock.
Thunderstorms on test days are always more fun.
Every so often while working retail we would get an out-of-towner in the store while that happens.
They lose their shit and panic.
One time at a sports store, a guy heard the sirens at the checkout counter and just left the cart and booked it for his car. I guess he figured he would outrun anything coming at him…
We have the same but like for enemy invasion, the test is not like the real thing though but just short bursts.
Wait till they hear about the reverse tornadoes that build houses and straighten out all the trees.
They’re turning the friggin’ trees straight!
MI here, we test ours the first Saturday of the month
Have a guest from Florida atm, and it still scares her every time lol
MI as well. Most towns I’ve seen test them on Saturday, but I have seen one that tested them on Wednesday.
We get the tornado alarm test on the first Monday of the month at noon. Hope one never hits at that time, because nobody would bat an eye.
Me living near a nuclear plant, hearing sirens but then realizing it’s a Wednesday at 10 AM.
The power company now has a service that sends a text message on days they’re testing the siren, which is helpful. They won’t use it for an actual emergency, I assume because an actual emergency alert would go out.
It’s storm weather awareness week, so they’ve been running the alarms at random times here outside of Minneapolis. Thankfully, each town does it at different times, and when it’s a real alarm we get it from all directions, so it’s easy to tell the difference.
Heard them all go off at 6:45pm yesterday and had a moment of concern when I realized it was Thursday before looking it up.
Yeah, if they all went off at once, I’d have a minor panic attack. We live in the burbs on the county border, and there are 3 town centers almost equidistant from us; and another 2 within hearing distance. When it’s real, they all go off, from all directions, but the towns don’t synchronize their tests except for the weekly one, and it’s obvious when it’s just a random township test.
We have a perfect tornado room: no windows, in the basement, but the first time we had one we’d just moved here from Pennsylvania. We have two cats and with all of the alarms I spent a dozen minutes chasing one down, getting it into the room with my wife, then going for the other… and the first time, the first cat escaped while I was coming in with the second so I had to go back out and capture it again. And then, when we’re all comfortably settled in the room, my wife casually says, “you know, you really should go get my purse so we have credit cards.” So out I go again, up two floors to find the purse. By then, it looked like Wizard of Oz outside the windows, like nothing I’d ever seen: no visibility, and green. I’ve been in hurricanes before, and as terrifying as they are, they’ve hit nothing on tornados for sheer weird.
Anyway, the tornado passed us by, no damage to the family or property, but I’m less eager to experience another one than I used to be.
We just get noon at the first Monday of the month. But it’s an air alarm, not tornado.
OH SHIT THE AIR IS COMING
To be fair tornados are notoriously bad at keeping apointments
Unlike the Germans
It makes sense, really. Where are they going to put their watch? At the narrow part at the bottom?
Found a fellow dutchie. Also it’s the law that at least one person says “the Germans are coming!” When we hear it.
It’s not just a law, I think it’s in the constitution. Beatrix even does it every Liberation Day
First monday of the month for my area
Them’s the rules.
Its also pretty convenient because the tests are really short. So if they go long, you get your ass to cover because you’re all like “uuhhhhh wtf man it’s Wednesday.”
Coastal area checking in, same thing for the tsunami alarms. I had some good fun with a tourist when, after they asked what the droning sound was, I replied with “Oh, it’s just the tsunami alarm” and then didn’t react to it. They were visibly nervous, so I waited a sec and then said “It’s just a test 😁”
What’s a real mindfuck is going from one place to the other. SF tsunami alarms are on Tuesdays. So you have a brief moment of panic, then a brief moment of calm, and then a brief moment of EXTREME PANIC when you realize what day it is, and then calm again when you realize what state you’re in
Wow, what an alarm, huh.
Lemon, it’s Tuesday.
Nah just check the time, if it’s noon you’re good. If it ain’t noon you check the news and make sure it isn’t a scheduled one at 10am for some test because they’re planning to replace the sirens with new equipment. If it ain’t that because the internet’s out then it’s probably real but if not you got a moment to see if it’s real for another reason
If I’m an ambitious tornado, I’mma touch down exactly at Noon on Wednesday. Y’all’n’t seen that coming didja?
I legit think that every time I hear it “if I was a tornado thisd be when I’d do it tell ya hwhat”
Start by checking the weather outside. If it’s sunny and clear, no tornado. If not, start looking - places I’ve been at least, they’ve been reluctant to test if there’s even much cloud coverage.
growing up near SAC bases like barksdale… second saturday of every month started with them testing the END OF THE WORLD sirens. if this siren went off any other time than a second saturday, kiss your ass goodbye, multiple megatons are incoming.
