This week kicks off Hurricane Preparedness Week, so you may be looking to brush up on what you can do to be prepare for storms.

A weather radio gives you the heads-up on bad weather.

"It's going to alert you of weather 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So no matter what time, that weather radio is going to go off," says 13WMAZ's Meteorologist, Sonya Stevens.

Stevens says one of the most important steps for preparing for bad weather is knowing when it's happening.

She says getting the weather radio programmed to your area is simple.

"What we're gonna do is we're gonna hit the menu button," she says, with the radio in hand,  "And then we're going to use the up and down arrows. So we're going go to SAME SET. Hit select."

It'll say SAME 01; hit select. From there, you type in your counties number.

The National Weather Service gives each county a number. Click here for the federal list.

Use the up and down arrows to change the numbers.

"There's 013021," Stevens says as she goes through the list, "We're good to go."

That's Bibb County's number.

"So basically, use the up and down arrows to get the number you want, use the right and left arrow to go over. Once you get that code pushed in, you hit select, it brings you back to SAME SET," says Stevens. "And then, the only other thing you need to do is you need to go to menu, hit channel, make sure you're on the right channel. If you can hear the weather radio they're gonna tell you it's sunny and 76 degrees, they're gonna give you current conditions all the time. As long as you're hearing that clearly, you're on the right channel."