Mississippi Senators introduces a bill to improve tornado forecasting.

The passing of a possible new bill will have the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association working to improve hazardous weather forecasting and communications.

Mississippi Senators introduce a new bill to improve tornado and hazardous weather forecasting. If the Bill is passed what changes would be made to better inform citizens of possible incoming severe weather?

“What it means is that we would hope that we would have some studies done and some things are done that would allow forecasters to forecast weather more accurately and would also give us some awareness time so that people would get these alerts in a timely manner so that storms didn't, for the most part, sneak upon us. It would give people time to actually find shelter and get in a safe place before these storms actually hit, “said Doug Stephens the Director of Public Safety.

Stephens said being able to forecast storms a little farther out and with more accuracy on the strength and timing would be beneficial for our area.

“Well, here where we live in east-central Mississippi, we're kind of in a zone where it's hard to forecast. It is hard for radar to pick up and indicate our weather systems at times. Although that has improved in the last couple of years, it still would be greatly appreciated if we had technology that will allow us to see these storms at a high resolution as they get closer to our area, “stated Stephens.

I spoke with some Meridian residents and got their opinions on ways other than the news that would be beneficial for citizens to be notified of incoming tornados or severe weather.

“I’ve been trying this for a long time and if the parents at home don’t take over and tell these kids to start watching the news and stop watching all of these CDs they not going to change,” said John Reed.

Mike Morgan said, “Notifications on tornados I think would be valuable if we had something that was texted and came on the tv like an amber alert or a silver alert like when older people or younger people are kidnapped or this and that, that would work really well.”