Before a storm, be sure you know where in your county you are located, and learn the names of the surrounding counties and key geographic features in your area. Warnings are being issued at increasingly fine geographic scales, and usually use county names. When you know where you are within your county and in relation to surrounding counties, you can more effectively interpret the warnings you receive, says Greg Carbin, a warning-coordination meteorologist at NOAA's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.