HAMBLEN COUNTY, Tenn. (WVLT) -- The National Weather Service in Morristown has sent out dozens of warnings over the last week, but the system has changed from what you might be use to.

Volunteer TV News spoke with George Mathews, NWS Morristown’s chief meteorologist on Thursday night. He told us the new method is more specific than the older system, which makes warning the public of severe weather more efficient.

The National Weather Service monitors storms for 40 counties in East Tennessee and surrounding states. The biggest change in the new NWS warning system replaced whole county watches and warnings with polygon shaped tracking areas.

"We draw a box on the screen,” said Mathews. “The software sees where it is, the latitude and longitude points, and automatically puts in communities in path of the storm."

The criteria for issuing thunderstorm and tornado warnings still remains the same.

Volunteer TV News Senior Meteorologist Megan Campbell works with the new system almost daily and thinks it's serving its purpose.

"It’s new,” said Campbell. “They are just looking at a portion of the county. I think that's a great idea but we need to watch how often we put it up. I want people to take me seriously and it is a dangerous situation."

The National Weather Service is also doing more research on tornadoes.

Looking at how tornadoes behave in hilly terrain.

"They seem to increase as they go downward in terrain,” said Mathews, “and decrease as they go upward in terrain."

Tornadoes are dangerous that's why the Morristown office puts out warnings, but lightning is just as dangerous.

"Lightning is so common we don't put out warnings for it,” said Mathews, “but it's Certainly can kill people and do a lot of damage."