Tropical storm systems (i.e. hurricanes & such) aren't anywhere near the problem in the Baltimore-Washington area as they are elsewhere on the Gulf and Eastern Seaboard. Occasionally though they do intrude in a major way and every year the remnants of tropical storms give us a bit of heavy weather -- as the remains of Tropical Storm Nicole are now. For those of you who want to know about tropical storms before they arrive, the National Hurricane Center maintains email advisory lists and an RSS feed. You can sign up at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/signup.shtml . It’s free and you only need to provide an email address.

There are a number of advisories to choose from. The daily Atlantic Tropical Weather Outlook is the the best all-purpose advisory. It provides a text weather forecast plus a link that takes you to a satellite image showing tropical disturbances and more links that allow you to track storms 3-5 days out and determine whether high winds are going to occur in your area.

Pretty handy, and you'll never have a day without mail (during hurricane season anyway).