NextGen Live: Behind The Radar

News 9's NextGen Live is the most advanced radar in the world. Baron services designed it, making it even faster and more powerful than all the National Weather Service radars in the country. We traveled to Huntsville, Alabama to sit down with Bob Baron, owner Baron Services, to find out why he's so passionate about staying ahead of the storm.

"Oh this was Hackleburg, this was the F5," Bob Baron points out in a pictures hanging on the walls at Baron Services.

Building weather radars for Baron isn't just business, it's personal.

"It was 1989, November 15 and I was the chief at the NBC affiliate here," he said.

A former meteorologist, Baron says the technology failed him that day.

"We didn't know about it, the weather service didn't know about it," he remembers.

An F4 tornado tore through Huntsville, killing 23 people that day.

"We were relying on what we thought were weather tools but they were really just weather gadgets," he said.

So he left TV and became a pioneer in weather radar technology, building state-of-the-art systems for television, the military and the U.S. government. Now, his company has designed our NextGen Live, the most powerful dual pol radar in the world, even faster than all of the National Weather Service radars.

"You start with a concept and then you just keep making it better," Baron said. "I think we're just kind of scratching the surface of the new technology."