Dane County Emergency Management Conducting Annual Outdoor Warning Siren Maintenance

December 16, 2025
Andrew Beckett
Emergency Management

DANE COUNTY - Dane County Emergency Management will be conducting annual preventive maintenance on the county network of outdoor warning sirens during the week of December 15.

The county’s servicing vendor will be working on about 45 sirens throughout the county between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. each day this week. Part of this process requires a test of the siren, which can result in it sounding for about 30 seconds. There is no need for any action if you hear this brief activation.

This routine work is done annually. Unfortunately, since the maintenance crew is moving from location to location as it completes work at each site, there is no way to provide advance notice to the area around a siren that testing will take place.

Dane County maintains a network of 144 outdoor warning sirens, which are designed to alert residents when the National Weather Service issues warnings for tornadoes or severe thunderstorms that could produce tornado-like conditions. During an activation for a weather event, Dane County’s sirens will sound continuously for three minutes. If that happens, head indoors to seek shelter and additional information. Sirens are tested at around noon on the first Wednesday of each month.

Learn more about the outdoor warning siren network in Dane County at https://em.countyofdane.com/notification-system/sirens.