GREEN BAY (WRN)  Summer’s severe weather season is on the horizon and when the tornado sirens sound, we’ll hear a more detailed message from the National Weather Service. Jeff Last, a meteorologist at the NWS Green Bay office, says the agency started a pilot program for an impact-based warning system last year in Missouri and Kansas, and now it’s coming to Wisconsin.

Last says the warnings will give people a better idea of whether an approaching tornado is relatively weak–and is likely to cause tree or house damage–or it is a major tornado that can kill a lot of people.He says they decided to create more detailed warnings after people ignored the general warnings prior to a massive tornado that devastated the Joplin, Missouri community in 2011.

The new warning system takes effect on April 1.