The tropical storm season has just begun. So far, there have been no Atlantic tropical storms, but you can be pretty sure everyone who lives along the southeast coast of the U. S. is watching and waiting.

Typically, tropical depressions start in the East Atlantic and move west towards the U. S. Coast. It typically takes from one to two weeks from the time a disturbance off the coast of Africa to make land fall. As the storm progresses west, it picks up strength, changing from a tropical depression to a tropical storm (receiving a name) and then to a hurricane. And, back on the east coast many of us are waiting, and, every six hours, plotting the coordinates on our hurricane maps while speculating about the odds of being hit. Now there are there are resources on the web to help the storm tracking and speculation.

One site that helps is operated by the Tropical Prediction Center of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service ( www.nhc.noaa.gov ). That site provides information about both Atlantic storms that may threaten those of us on the East coast, and the Eastern Pacific storms off the West coast of the US. In addition to the actual text of the advisory, usually issued every six hours, the site provides the forecast of the storm movement for the next 72 hours. (These predictions are often very accurate, but are also often very inaccurate. However, much more information is given in a discussion that is issued along with the advisory and the forecast.

Another site is the tropical weather section of the Intellicast.com ( www.intellicast.com/Tropical ). This page list all current tropical storms (tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes) in the Atlantic and Pacific regions. For each storm a link will display a map showing the past track and the official prediction. Links will also display the same forecasts and discussion as the official National Weather Service site (above).

Another aid to storm tracking is not a web site but a shareware computer program called Tracking The Eye, or TTE. Distributed by Gencode, www.gencode.com , the programs runs on Windows 95/98/NT/2000. A trial version is free; the registered version costs $24.95.

The program displays a map of the Atlantic or Pacific (selected by a menu option). Storm coordinates can be entered manually or downloaded from the internet through TTE. The current location of the storm and the track of the storm are displayed on the map. (Downloading will require registration and payment of the $24.95 fee). Data for each location, whether entered manually or downloaded, include the coordinates, storm direction and speed, maximum wind speed, and barometric pressure, is stored on your hard disk. Also on your hard disk is the data from all storms from 1900 to the present.

The current storm, any previous storm you entered or downloaded, or any of the past storms in the data base may be displayed. In determining my own prediction of whether the storm will strike my location and the expected time to landfall. I often like to call up previous storms that did hit my location, compare the track to the current storm, and also determine the time that the past storm took to reach landfall.