Severe Weather: Eyes on the storm

WUPW - March 23-27 has been Ohio's Severe Weather Awareness Week and FOX Toledo's Stormtracker Weather team has been telling you how to prepare for severe weather.

This season we have stood up our Stormtracker Chase Team, headed by reporter Barrett Andrews.

Using Skype, a software program that allows you to make video calls over the Internet, FOX Toledo's Stormtracker Chase Team aims to bring live images of severe weather in the region for those watching FOX Toledo News on TV and FOXToledo.com on the Internet.

We hope to amp up our severe weather coverage with eyes on the ground to keep you safe.

So when Chief Meteorologist Doug Moats, or weathercasters Bruce Slusher and Larry Whatley talk about rotation in the storm, hail, or ground-to-sky lightning, the chase team can try and get there -- to show it to you live on your television and online screens.

We'll have the Chase Cam on the Stormtracker Chase Team page on FOXToledo.com so you can watch as much as you'd like. There's no need to wait for it to show up on TV. It will feel like you are tagging along for the chase.

On top of all that, we've got our Stormtracker Mobile Doppler we'll be using in the news Jeep, and you can see that, too, exactly as we see it. We'll even have our GPS position overlayed, so you know precisely where we are in relation to the storms.

Not enough for you? Well, there's also a live chat on the page so you can talk to us while we're out, letting us know what conditions are like where you are, or, maybe asking us why we didn't take that last turn.

Sure, all the bells and whistles sound great, right? But what do we really have to offer? Well, we're joining the slew of volunteer storm spotters in Northwest Ohio, part of the Skywarn program, to provide information to the National Weather Service so they can better issue warnings and, in the end, it'll all keep you safer.