photo by: Submitted/Dusty Murphy

Signs of a storm on Lawrence's outskirts are seen from the University of Kansas campus on Friday, July 14, 2023.

Douglas County Emergency Management is urging residents to stay weather aware while NOAA Weather Radio transmitters are temporarily offline for a system upgrade.

The National Weather Service in Topeka is upgrading its system from Monday, June 16 to Wednesday, June 18, according to a press release from Douglas County Emergency Management. Two affected transmitters serve the county: Topeka (WXK91 – 162.475 MHz) and Halls Summit (KGG98 – 162.425 MHz). The Kansas City transmitter (KID77 – 162.550 MHz) will remain operational but may not have coverage across all areas of the county.

The weather service will continue issuing watches, warnings and advisories during the outage, the press release said. The outage comes as Douglas County may experience severe weather during the upgrade period.

There is an expected round of storms to go across Douglas County from Monday evening as well as the overnight hours of Tuesday. The most likely chance for severe storms will be on Tuesday evening and overnight with damaging winds, large hail, heavy rain/localized flooding and a few tornados possible, according to the Topeka weather service branch.

As alternatives, people can sign up for texts and email alerts via the Northeast Kansas Regional Notification System at https://dgcoks.gov/emalerts. In addition, people can monitor local TV and radio broadcasts for severe weather updates and use weather apps for real-time notifications.

Douglas County Emergency Management will continue to monitor conditions and issue alerts during the upgrade, and people can follow for social media alerts and updates @dgcoem on Facebook and X.

If a tornado warning is issued, outdoor warning sirens will be activated. Residents are reminded that these sirens are intended for outdoor use and may not be heard indoors. For indoor alerts, residents are urged to rely on other sources.