In the United States it used to be on the first Wednesday of each month during the summer they would run a tornado alarm. Namely it was to test the alarm system, to make sure that everything was working.
And we knew if it was Wednesday and the first Wednesday of the month I mean. And those alarms went off we knew not to worry too much about it.
For some genius reason they decided to run them on different days, it’s pretty much just random at this point. Which is stupid because the only thing it does is makes everybody ignore the alarm.
OMG, that’s insane.
My area tests them first Thursday of the month, and it’s well-known. Came in handy last Tuesday when we had a real tornado and the sirens did their job. Between those and the EAS alerts on my phone, there was absolutely no ambiguity.
If my area started doing them randomly, I’d raise hell because of exactly what you described. I don’t always have cell signal (T-Mobile sucks here), but I can hear the sirens clear as a bell.
Yeah. Our city tests them every Wednesday at noon. If there’s any inclement weather, they specifically will not sound at noon. We call them the Wednesday Woos.