Beaufort County Emergency Management has embarked on a new project, one that will make the county better prepared to handle emergencies — especially weather-related emergencies — before and after they happen.

This involves many pieces, but the most interesting one to the general public would be the fact that the county is seeking volunteers to help in this effort.

One requirement of becoming officially StormReady certified by the National Weather Service is putting in place a network of people who can watch the skies and identify severe weather to feed back to the National Weather Service.

Every person learned about weather back in their schooldays, but as people leave school behind, much of what’s learned may go the wayside simply because that knowledge is not used. The SKYWARN class offered to volunteers who want to be part of the county weather-relaying network is refresher course on all types of severe weather, from funnel clouds to super-cell thunderstorms. An argument can be made that everyone should take part in such a class. Many times, especially at this time of year, seconds count when it comes to unexpected storms. An example would be the EF3 tornado that tore through Beaufort County in April 2014. Then, it was pure luck no lives were lost during the carnage, because most in the county had little to no warning of the destruction coming. Being able to look at the sky and read the possibilities of impending weather is a unique skill to have, especially when it comes to safety and the split-second decisions that may have to be made.

It’s a useful class for personal reasons, but those who are SKYWARN certified become a valuable part of a greater community. The purpose of a having a network of people relaying their weather observations is two-fold: to inform warnings issued by NWS and compare NWS radar to what’s actually happening on the ground, which only serves to amass data to make NWS warnings that much more accurate.

Plenty of people are weather watchers, if only as a matter of curiosity. The SKYWARN program, however, allows the average person to take a small part in a big effort to make Beaufort County a safer place to live.

To register for the SKYWARN class offered on May 11 at the county Emergency Operations Center, contact Lisa Williams at 252-946-2046.