The Macon-Bibb Emergency Management Agency has begun installing a networking of weather stations across the county that is going to help keep you ahead of the storm.

The Macon-Bibb Emergency Management Agency has begun installing a networking of weather stations across the county that is going to help keep you ahead of the storm.

Before this year, Bibb County has had only one reliable weather station located at the Macon Regional Airport in the southern part of the county, an area on the outskirts of the majority of Bibb's population.

The layout for the new weather monitoring network would extend to all points of the county providing more localized conditions for your neighborhood, and give real time data for advancing storms.

“Historically, a lot of the storms are coming from the west so we can actually see things around Lake Tobesofkee that are actually heading toward the eastern part of the county in advance,” says director of the Macon-Bibb EMA Donald Druitt.

The solar powered instruments are being mounted at fire stations which are spaced out across the county and manned 24 hours a day so data can still be retrieved in the event of a power outage.

“We could actually talk to those stations live to ask them to give the updates off the weather display device,” says Druitt.

During severe weather events, flooding rain and damaging winds can be very localized. This network will pinpoint area affected worse by the storms helping to create a response strategy.

“It’s important to know if the winds are of a certain speed that may be unsafe for our people to traverse the streets and also the level of rainfall,” says Druitt.

The data from these weather stations are broadcast over the internet in real times allowing for the public to tap into local weather conditions, and provide valuable information to the National Weather Service.

“The National Weather Service is real excited about our product so they can actually receive the data from the instruments so they can look at the various weather at specific places in our county which they weren’t able to do before,” says Druitt.

With this network in place, Bibb County will be joining a number of communities across the state who are making use of this technology and help to achieve storm ready certification by the National Weather Service.

4 stations are to be installed this spring to get the network up and running with more to come in the future.