Living in Wisconsin, we’re not strangers to the severe weather that often rolls through in the spring, summer and fall seasons.

It’s common to see warnings and watches issues, but now meteorologists and emergency management directors are working with a new system aimed at making those warnings more accurate.

The sound of sirens is one we might hear once or twice during the severe weather season, even if there isn’t a cloud in sight. But now, instead of issuing weather warnings on a county-by-county basis, the National Weather Service will issue them based on the location of the storm.

NewsChannel 7 Meteorologist Katie O’Brien says, “It helps in terms of there’s a lot less hassle on the part of people who aren’t even going to be affected by the storm.”

While some meteorologists have already started implementing the new system, it could mean big changes for the county emergency management officials who operate the severe weather warning sirens.

For many county emergency management programs, all sirens in the county are sounded with one punch of a button… but with the new warning system that is something that will have to change. It’s a change that comes with a price tag.

Emergency management officials in Portage County say they would have to change out radios and update their technology so they could sound sirens in selected warning areas instead of the entire county.

Emergency Management Director Sandra Curtis says “It’s an increased workload. The dispatcher may have to do that procedure 5 or 6 times during a storm, so it’s actually creating some difficulty on our end.

Curtis adds that updating the technology could cost between $10,000 and $20,000, but she doesn’t expect the updates to happen for several years.

Experts at the National Weather Service say the new warning system will decrease the size of warning areas by about 75% during a severe weather outbreak.