Introduction to SAME messages
Hazard alerts are transmitted with Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) data, which
includes:
● Nature of the alert
● Hazard level
● Affected counties
● Expiration time
Receivers that can decode the SAME data can filter alerts by area and/or hazard level
and show details about the alert on a display. For a table of all the alerts and the code
meanings, click here.
FIPS Codes
The US National Weather Service uses 6-digit Federal Information Processing System
(FIPS) codes to issue hazard alerts in specific areas. You can choose which areas you
want to hear alerts for by programming the appropriate FIPS codes into your receiver:
the receiver only sounds the alert tone if an incoming FIPS code matches one of the
areas you entered.
Each county (or parish, etc.) is designated by a 5-digit FIPS code; parts of a county are
marked by a section code inserted at the front:
Code Country area
0 Entire County
(default)
1 Northwest
2 North Central
3 Northeast
4 West Central
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