National Weather Service Alert

I caught a strange weather alert on the radio from the National Weather Service in nearby Lincoln, Illinois the other night. They'd been broadcasting a few of these ones with clipped announcements. I never found out why. It has a comedic effect, though, because the tones are such dramatic attention-grabbers and then the announcement just goes kaput.

And those tones are: Middle C (the short opening and closing tones) and a long note middle-way between G#5 and A5 (played before the announcement--probably some thousands of Hertz).


Link

I wonder, are these tones nationally standardized across weather stations, or do your radio weather alerts sound different than mine? Same computerized voice?

I wasn't sure what picture to post this time, so I went with what I thought was cool: shots of doppler radar stations. Enjoy.