Tornado Warnings are issued by the National Weather Service when a tornado has been sighted by an officially trained weather spotter or is indicated by Doppler radar. Tornado Warnings are broadcast by local media and by NOAA Weather Radio. Outdoor Warning/Tornado sirens operated by the Memphis/Shelby County Emergency Management are located in strategic locations throughout Memphis and Shelby County including the cities of Millington, Lakeland, and Arlington.

When a tornado warning is issued for any portion of the county, Memphis/Shelby County Emergency Communications will activate the sirens. Once activated, all sirens within Memphis and Shelby County will sound. This means if a tornado warning is issued for the eastern half of Shelby County, all sirens will be activated.

DO NOT CALL 911 when you hear a Outdoor Warning/Tornado siren. Instead, first tune into local media and/or your Weather Radio. If, after doing so, you believe the siren activation is a malfunction, contacts for the various sirens can be found on this page. Tornado Sirens located in the cities of Germantown, Collierville, and Bartlett are activated by the respective city and are NOT controlled by the Memphis/Shelby County Emergency Management. Contact numbers for those jurisdictions can also be found at the link listed above.

Outdoor Warning/Tornado sirens are designed to be an early warning device primarily for persons who are outside away from the television and/or radio. Outdoor Warning/Tornado sirens are not frequently heard in homes during spring and summer months for multiple reasons such as the distance from the siren, homes being shut up with air conditioners running, and people being asleep during nighttime storms with thunder, rain, and wind. For this reason Emergency Management officials highly recommend citizens keep a NOAA Weather Alert Radio in their homes, preferably in the bedroom, with a tone alert programmed.

For a complete list of warning sirens in Shelby County (Excel format), click here.

View warning sirens in Google Maps: click here

Download KML file for Google Earth: click here

Information above courtesy Memphis/Shelby County Emergency Management Agency
Locations of warning sirens are provided to the best of our ability and may not be 100% accurate.