In Hawaii, “aloha” means both “hello” and “goodbye” and many are hoping to wish the latter to what could be a record breaking storm for the state of Hawaii as well as the Big Island of Hawaii. Hurricane Warnings remain up for the Big Island while Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect for the rest of the state. The storm, just upgraded to hurricane status, is currently south and east of the Big Island, with a well defined eye visible in radar imagery.
The state of Hawaii sits in the middle of the vast Central Pacific Hurricane Basin with far more water than land; because of that, while there are 4-5 tropical cyclones (tropical storms or hurricanes) in the basin, storms rarely impact the islands.
The earliest documented report of a tropical cyclone on the Big Island is from September 1843. A German ship recorded a tropical cyclone in the area believed to hit the southern coast of the Big Island not far from where Lala is today. In 1871, indigenous newspapers reported a significant hurricane causing damage throughout portions of Hawaii and Maui islands. However, official and reliable hurricane records only came to be since 1950; continuous satellite coverage of the Central Pacific didn’t begin until 1971, so it’s possible even in the record-keeping years of 1950-1971 there may have been nearby storms not properly identified or tracked.
Since the start of record keeping in 1950, there have only been 19 hurricanes to come within 100 miles of Hawaii and only 2 of those actually hit Hawaii: Hurricane Dot in 1959 and Hurricane Iniki in 1992. If Lala intensifies to a hurricane and makes landfall on Hawaii Island, it would become only the third hurricane to do so –and a first for the Big Island.
However, the Big Island and Hawaii aren’t strangers to tropical cyclones. Hawaii and Hawaii Island especially have been hit by decaying hurricanes in tropical storm form or have dealt with moisture leftover from the remnants of previous systems.
One of the most severe storms to impact the Big Island was Tropical Storm Iselle in 2014. With maximum sustained winds of 60 mph at landfall, Iselle was weaker than what Lala is today. Nevertheless, it was responsible for 1 death and over $145 million in damages in Hawaii.
The only other systems to strike Hawaii Island as a tropical storm were an un-named Tropical Storm #7 in 1958 and Tropical Storm Darby in 2016.
Tropical Storm Darby hit the Big Island as a weak tropical storm, with maximum sustained winds of only 40 mph when it hit near Pahala in the southern part of the island. While Darby brought some wind, it also brought heavy rain, with 5-8″ across Maui and Hawaii islands. Today, Lala is bringing much more wind and rain with it to Hawaii.
Hurricane Hone was a 2024 hurricane that traveled south of Hawaii Island. While it brought heavy rain to Hawaii, the core and the hurricane force winds remained far south of the Big Island. Even with the center far off-shore and there being no landfall, Hone was still responsible for more than $8 million in damages across the island.
Right now, as of the 9 am Hawaii Time advisory from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), Lala is at 17.9 N 155.1 W which is 85 miles south-southeast of South Point, Hawaii and about 300 miles south-east of Honolulu on the island of Oahu. Maximum sustained winds are at 75 mph which makes it a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. The storm is moving west at 10 mph and the minimum pressure is down to 988 mb or 29.18″.
Some erratic motion is likely later today and tonight while Lala interacts with the Big Island of Hawaii. After passing the Big Island, Lala is expected to turn westward on Sunday with an increase in forward speed, with the core of the storm staying south of remainder of the main Hawaiian Islands and the easternmost Northwestern Hawaiian Islands through the early part of next week. As a result, the Big Island of Hawaii should see the worst impacts from the storm.
Weakening is expected tonight and on Sunday, but some restrengthening is forecast by late Monday and Tuesday as it moves away from Hawaii.
Lala is large. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 205 miles from the center. A sustained wind of 46 mph and a gust to 69 mph were recently reported at Puuloa on the Big Island of Hawaii at an elevation of 3366 ft. A wind gust
to 40 mph was recently reported at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) in Honolulu.
If Lala moves just a little more north, the eye would cross the southernmost point of the Big Island, making it the third such storm to do so on record. Whether those records are made remain up for discussion and debate by tropical meteorologists, but even if it doesn’t, the impacts will be nearly the same: flooding rains, damaging wind gusts, and violent surf as Hurricane Lala’s impacts move through Hawaii.
