The National Hurricane Center routinely issues three-day forecasts of the track and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans, so you can get predictions out to 72 hours in the future of a storm's location and strength.

Last year, the Hurricane Center began experimenting with in-house five-day forecasts, and this hurricane season they'll do it again. Statistics from last year show that, if formally implemented, the five-day tropical forecasts will be more accurate than the three-day tropical forecasts were when they were first introduced in the 1960s.

Having said this, you should realize that current tropical forecast capabilities are still pretty limited. For example, the average error in the track of a tropical storm or hurricane is still about 100 miles in a one-day forecast and and 230 miles in a three-day forecast - and 230 miles is about the distance from Rehoboth Beach, DE, to Cape Hatteras, NC.