The day is past when a hurricane could develop to maturity far out to sea and go undetected until its thrust toward land. Earth-orbiting satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) keep the earth's atmosphere under virtually continuous survellance, night and day. Long before a storm has evolved, scientists at NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida have begun to watch the disturbance. In the satellite data coming from polar-orbiting and geostationary spacecraft and in reports from ships and aircraft, they look for subtle clues that mark the development of hurricanes-cumulus clouds covered by the cirrostratus deck of a highly organized convective system; showers that become steady rains; dropping atmospheric pressure; intensification of the tradewinds, or a westerly wind component there.

Then, if this hint of a disturbance blooms into a tropical storm, a time-honored convention is applied--it receives a name. Today, naming a storm is a signal which brings a considerbly more elaborate warning system to readiness. Long-distance communications lines and preparedness plans are flexed.

As an Atlantic hurricane drifts closer to land, it comes under surveillance by weather reconnaisance aircraft of the U.S. Air Force Reserve, the famous "Hurricane Trackers," who bump through the turbulent interiors of the storms to obtain precise fixes on the position of the eye and measure winds and pressure fields. Despite the advent of satellites, the aircraft probes are the most detailed quantitative information hurricane forecasters receive. The hurricanes are also probed by the "flying laboratories: from NOAA's Aircraft Operations Center in Miami. Finally, the approaching storm comes within the range of a radar network stretching from Texas to Maine and from Miami to the Lessar Antilles. Increasingly, that network is dominated by Dopplar radar, capable of giving precise position data as well as measurements of windspeeds and rainfall.

Through the lifetime of the hurricane, advisories from the National Hurricane Center give the storm's position and what the forecasters in Miami expect the storm to do. As the hurricane drifts to within a day or two of its predicted landfall, these advisories begin to carry watch and warning messages, telling people when and where the hurricane is expected to strike and what its effects are likely to be.

The first hurricane warning in the United States was flashed in 1873, when the Signal Corps warned against a storm approaching the coast between Cape May, New Jersey, and New London, Connecticut. Not until the storm has decayed over land and its cloudy elements and great cargo of moisture have blended with other brands of weather does the hurricane emergency end.

This system works well. The death toll in the United States from hurricanes has dropped steadily as NOAA's hurricane tracking and warning apparatus has matured. Although the accuracy of hurricane forecasts has improved over the years, any significant improvements must come from quantum leaps in scientific understanding.

The forecasters also know that science will never provide a full solution to the problems of hurricane safety. The rapid development of America's coastal areas has placed millions of people with little or no hurricane experience in the path of these lethal storms. For this vulnerable coastal population, the answer must be community preparedness and public education in the hope that education and planning before the fact will save lives and lessen the impact of the hurricane and whats its effects are likely to be.