Champaign County will now be recognized as a StormReady county. 

At a county board meeting on Tuesday the Champaign County Emergency Management Agency completed the necessary criteria to earn the distinction.

StormReady is a nationwide program that helps communities develop plans on how to handle local severe weather and flooding threats. The voluntary program provides communities with advice from a partnership between local National Weather Service forecast offices and state and local emergency managers.

“StormReady arms communities with improved communication and safety skills needed to save lives and property before and after the event,” said Chris Miller, warning coordination meteorologist at the NWS’s central Illinois weather forecast office.

The recognition for Champaign County will be in effect for three years and then will go through a renewal process. The necessary criteria in order to be a recognized country includes establishing a 24-hour emergency operations center, having multiple ways to receive severe weather forecasts and warnings to alert the public, creating a system that monitors local weather conditions, promoting public readiness through community seminars and developing a formal hazardous weather plan.

There are more than 2,015 StormReady communities across the nation.