Nasty Seattle windstorm knocks KUOW and KEXP off air, but public radio stations stream on

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UPDATE, Nov. 13, 9:30 p.m.: The radio signals for KUOW and KEXP were back on after 9 p.m. Monday after an outage that lasted about four hours.

Original story: A powerful wind and rain storm that targeted the Puget Sound region and Seattle on Monday evening took out trees and power lines — and also knocked two of the city’s radio stations off the air.

KUOW 94.9, the National Public Radio station in Seattle, and KEXP 90.3, the city’s public indie rock station, were both reduced to static on radio airwaves as high winds moved into the area in the late afternoon.

KUOW tweeted at 5 p.m. that the station was experiencing issues with its signal. Another tweet closer to 6 p.m. said that engineers were on the way to deal with a down transmitter.

KUOW’s website says that its “powerful 100,000 watt signal” originates from a transmitter on Seattle’s Capitol Hill and reaches east to the Cascade Mountains, west to the Olympic Mountains, south into Pierce and Thurston counties, and north into Snohomish, Skagit and Island counties.

Both stations stream their broadcasts online, and that service was uninterrupted during the storm.

The National Weather Service in Seattle tweeted numerous updates throughout the day on Monday related to the storm.

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