Violent weather has muted the robotic voices of NOAA's Weather Radio in the Baltimore area.
The Pikesville antenna that broadcasts the weather forecasts, and the all-important weather watches and warnings for the region was struck by lightning during the storm late Monday or early Tuesday.
The bolt knocked out full-power broadcasts at 162.4 Megahertz, reducing the signal to a poor-quality 500 watts. The broadcasts are punctuated by a series of beeps and little or no content from the synthetic announcers: sweet and sultry Donna, next-door neighbor Tom, and the older, and vaguely Scandanavian Paul.
The transmitter's range during repairs will be limited to no more than 5 or 10 miles. I can hear nothing in our downtown Baltimore office. Repairs are expected to take as long as two weeks, the National Weather Service said.
The good news is that the same products are available as MP3 files and RSS feeds here: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/lwx/podcasts/
(SUN PHOTO: Frank Roylance)