NOAA thinks my Echo is in Minnesota!

April 14, 2019 2:48 PM

We have Amazon Echos all through the house, and they are all correctly set up to show our location as Athens, Ohio. However, when we ask Alexa to play the feed from NOAA Weather Radio, it launches a feed from some place in Minnesota! Does anyone know how to get localized NOAA Weather feeds on their Echo?

I think my question is self-explanatory, but I'd like to add that we're not really interested in any of the other weather apps. They're fine, but during a Tornado Watch like we're experiencing today (right now!), we'd love to rely on NOAA. We can probably play it on our phones, our computers, etc, and maybe stream it to the Echo, but isn't there a way to just play the audio stream for Athens, Ohio, just by voice?

Seems to me I'm missing something really simple here. I've tried asking for NOAA Weather Radio for Athens, Ohio, but alas, no luck. I've tried asking for it to play NOAA Weather Radio through TuneIn, but it also defaults to Minnesota.

Argh!

posted by newfers to Technology (2 answers total)

The station you want is KZZ47; it's not available on Tune-In. When I (in Seattle) request NOAA weather radio, I too get the Minnesota feed. It seems like Alexa has one and only one associated stream for NOAA Weather Radio.

In order for Alexa to be able to provide a live stream, it has to be streamed somewhere on the internet, and it's apparent that not all local NOAA WR feeds are being streamed. I find that most government-sourced feeds that find their way to the internet as streams do so by virtue of hobbyists and newsmedia sources, adding, for example, local police scanner feeds, or airport ground controller feeds, to a livestream setup, which is then shared all over via Broadcastify and similar. Official sources of such a multitude of government streams are rare, because it does not necessarily serve the government's purpose to stream weather radio over the internet, or maybe it's just prohibitive since NOAA has hundreds of stations.

If you can find an online feed of KZZ47, you can either build an Alexa skill that makes it available to you, or find someone who can do so. But it's not a sure thing that there is such a feed.
posted by Sunburnt at 3:32 PM on April 14, 2019

I use Alexa for many things, and have found that using the phone app is the key for details like this. See if NOAA is listed as a "Skill" in the app and it will let you personalize it.

(I have not used NOAA, but I am assuming it has a skill that works like the other ones I have used.)
posted by tacodave at 4:13 PM on April 15, 2019