A "Hurricane Watch" means the storm will make landfall within 24 hours. The areas listed in a Hurricane Watch are fairly wide. If your neighborhood is included in a Hurricane Watch area, you can count on some bad weather at a minimum, gale-force winds (30+mph), high water/flash flood situations, and possibly tornadoes that are spawned by the hurricane. In other words, you may not get 100+mph winds, but you're going to have a nasty time of it.

A "Hurricane Warning" means you're getting a significant piece of the storm if you're in this area; the storm is less than 24 hours away. Low-lying areas (such as river and bay areas) are ordered evacuated.