The National Weather Service wants to educate the public about the lethal nature of severe storms.

The NWS does what it can through storm spotter classes, media seminars and public information it releases, but sometimes that’s not enough, according to Joe Sullivan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Louisville.

On Feb. 5, two Allen County residents went to bed aware of the damaging storms coming their way and weren’t alive the next morning, Sullivan said at aNWS gathering for media Thursday at Western Kentucky University.

They had the opportunity to go to a neighbor’s home that would have been safer but didn’t, he said.

Tedd Funk, another meteorologist with the NWS, said those two days in February were a huge weather event, with more than 85 tornadoes across the region, including 18 in central Kentucky.

Two of those were embedded in super cells, one of which killed four people in Allen County.

Funk and Sullivan said such storms are powerful and capable of causing great damage on the ground. From visual surveys across the state and plotting the damage on a map, it was easy to see that they were tornados.

Increasing public awareness of just how quickly storms can become lethal is important.

While print newspapers aren’t able to do that in real time, their Web sites often have weather information available and there are other weather products available to the public.

The National Weather Service Web site, www.nws.noaa.gov or www.weather.gov, has up-to-date information for communities and grlevelx.com is a site that offers real-time weather data.

The NWS information is free and the other requires a one-time fee for downloading the software.

Meteorologist Angie Lese said such information could be useful for schools and construction companies working outdoors that need current information; residents also may be interested in the information.

For others, including farmers, who are interested in historical and current weather information for the state, Western Kentucky University is developing the Kentucky Mesonet system. Currently, there are seven active sites in the state, including in Warren and Logan counties, and the goal of having a total of 30 by the end of the summer, according to Mike Grogan, systems administrator for the Mesonet.

Those Mesonet stations record wind speed, solar heating power, humidity, wind spend, soil moisture and other items to support long-term climate research, Grogan said.

Considered to be in an experimental mode now, the system should become operational in August, he said.