Hurricane Season is Here Again

Last year was the year that Florida would like to forget. Who knows how this year is going to develop?<br />
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There are a number of resources for information on how to prepare for a potential hurricane, what to buy, what to have on hand, how to pack, when to leave, etc. All that fades into the background – we've heard it all before and will hear it again. It's the same old story, which we all think we know already.<br />
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But, then the storm looks like it's heading our way! What do we do? Where's the list of what we need to buy? What's a Hurricane Warning? Is it worse than a Hurricane Watch, or better? How can we keep track of where the darned thing is?<br />
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That gets me to the meat of this message — I have two sites that I use to monitor hurricane movements. One is the official site of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — NOAA. Their hurricane tracking/forecast link is the <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=361&amp;entry_id=83" title="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">National Hurricane Center</a>. It is complete with history, forecasts, maps and preparedness information — almost a one-stop shop (you can't get your cash, bread and gas there).<br />
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The other site that I like to use, in fact, if is my primary site for monitoring hurricane movement is the <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=362&amp;entry_id=83" title="http://hurricane.terrapin.com/" onmouseover="window.status='http://hurricane.terrapin.com/';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Hurricane &amp; Storm Tracking for the Atlantic &amp; Pacific Oceans</a>. This is a privately owned site that has been around for a number of years. It gets its data from NOAA and then massages it. I prefer its tracking charts to those of NOAA. It also has an interesting Storm Archive — a Java-based animated system that displays storms from 1886 through 2004. <br />