USA TODAY

Aloha Hone, now Gilma: Hurricanes keep Hawaii residents on alert

By Christopher Cann, Kathleen Wong and Jorge L. Ortiz, USA TODAY,

13 hours ago

HONOLULU − Residents across Hawaii are taking steps to prepare for the potential impacts of back-to-back hurricanes, as Hone was exiting Monday and Gilma slowly approached from the eastern Pacific.

In Lower Puna, just south of Hilo in the Big Island, Laurie Lyon-Makaimoku and her family took the tarps off their outdoor garage structure and pulled out their camping stove and propane tank. They also picked avocados and breadfruit from the trees on their property in anticipation of Gilma's gusty winds.

“We got a ton of rain,” she told USA TODAY. “Sunday afternoon, everything started settling down, but it was raining all day Friday. We were doing our storm prep in the rain. But the worst of it was on Saturday.”

Hone strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane as it crossed south of the Big Island early Sunday, dumping over a foot of rain across portions of the island and up to 18 inches in some areas. Some major roads flooded, waterways swelled and thousands of homes and businesses lost power, but there were no reports of major damage. By night, Hone had weakened into a tropical storm as it pushed to the west of the Hawaiian islands.

Hurricane Gilma tracker: See latest details, projected path of storm in Pacific

Several beaches across the Big Island were closed Monday and five public schools canceled classes because of power outages and dangerous road conditions, the Hawaii County website said. The school where Lyon-Makaimoku's children attend shut down Monday after a tree fell and took out power on the main campus.

"We are moving into the recovery stage," Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth said in a Facebook livestream Sunday afternoon. He said emergency crews will inspect damage across the island this week as linemen restore power and authorities begin preparations for Hurricane Gilma. Blackouts were down to just 2,000 across the state by midmorning, according to poweroutage.us .

"Gilma is coming so ... even through we're done with this one, it's good to start preparing for the next one," Roth said.

'The tropics are broken': So where are all the Atlantic hurricanes?

Hurricane Gilma forecast to swipe the Hawaiian islands

While Tropical Storm Hone continued moving away from the Big Island of Hawaii, forecasters and local officials are keeping a close eye on Hurricane Gilma.

Gilma, still more than 1,100 miles east of Hilo in the Big Island, is forecast to bring showers, thunderstorms and gusty winds to the state later this week. As of 11 a.m. Hawaii time, the storm's sustained winds had increased to 110 mph, making it a Category 2 storm just on the edge of a major hurricane.

Forecasters project the storm will pass just north of the Hawaiian islands and they stressed that Gilma's impacts will depend greatly on how close it comes to the state. On its current track, Gilma is expected to lose strength and be downgraded to a tropical depression in the latter half of the week, AccuWeather said.

"The combination of both tropical cyclones will likely bring an extended period of rough seas and surf to the islands, which will pose dangers to boarders, swimmers and small craft," AccuWeather said, referring to Hone and Gilma.

Lesser impacts in Oahu, but mindset has changed

In Oahu, the most populous of the Hawaiian islands and home to Honolulu, Kulana Cannon didn’t lose power but experienced strong winds, prompting her family to clear and secure everything in their yard.

“We're feeling like we did as much preparation as we could,” she said. “Not to say it’s a normal thing, but it kind of is for Hawaii – there’s always a season for hurricanes.''

Oahu is located more than 130 miles northwest of the Big Island, which took the brunt of Hone's impact. Though Oahu wasn't in the direct path of the storm, lessons from last August's tragedy in Maui, where strong winds from Hurricane Dora fueled the devastating fires that leveled the town of Lahaina, now permeate the mindset.

"With what happened last year with Maui,'' Cannon said, "it makes it more urgent, just to take it more seriously than normal day-to-day hurricane weather.”

As Pacific spins out storms, Atlantic stays quiet

Almost halfway through the hurricane season, the Pacific has churned out more named storms than the Atlantic, 9-5. Not only that, there are currently three such storms spinning in the Pacific − Hone, Gilda and Hector − which is three more than the Atlantic has produced since Aug. 20 or figures to pump out over the next week.

That runs counter to the norm, and is far from what forecasters envisioned when they warned of a hyperactive hurricane season in the Atlantic this year. The warm ocean water hurricanes need to fuel them is not where the storms are developing at this point.

"The Atlantic tropics are broken – for now," meteorologist Ryan Maue said on the X platform, adding that developing storms near Africa are encountering at least one problem: "Ocean temperatures at this latitude are way too cool to sustain a rain shower."

− Doyle Rice

Where is Tropical Storm Hone?

Tropical Storm Hone was located 280 miles west-southwest of Honolulu and 240 miles southwest of Lihue, Hawaii, late Monday morning, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu.

The storm had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph and its tropical force winds extended outward 90 miles from its center. Churning west at 13 mph, the storm is forecast to continue moving away from Hawaii and weaken in the coming days, the hurricane center said.

Back-to-back storms passing near Hawaii is extremely rare, experts say

If Hurricane Gilma lashes Hawaii by Sunday, it will be the first time in over 30 years that two named storms passed within 300 miles of the state within a week.

The last time back-to-back named storms hit the islands was in September 1992 when Hurricane Iniki, the most powerful storm to directly hit Hawaii, was followed three days later by tropical depression Orlene, according to AccuWeather .

Storm systems don't need to barrel directly over Hawaii to wreak havoc. Last year, Hurricane Dora fanned the deadliest wildfires in the U.S. in over a century.

Forecasters had worried Hone's winds could replicate Dora's impact, especially as swaths of the islands suffer relentless drought conditions, but the storm brought enough rain to quell fears and canceled wildfire warnings for portions of Hawaii's Big Island.

Tropical Storm Hector expected to strengthen in the eastern Pacific

To the east of Hurricane Gilma is Tropical Storm Hector , the latest storm to break out in the Pacific.

The storm is expected to continue tracking west in the general direction of Hawaii over the next few days, according to the National Hurricane Center . While officials are closely tracking the storm, it's far too early to tell how close it will come to the state.

As of 11 a.m. Hawaiian time Monday, Hector was over 1,000 miles west-southwest of Mexico's Baja California peninsula. The storm was moving west at 10 mph with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, the hurricane center said.

As wind shear decreases, the storm will likely gain strength moving toward the central Pacific basin early this week. Hector's intensification is expected to be limited by a region of dry air and stronger wind shear, according to the hurricane center.

Understanding hurricane basins and names

Tropical storms and hurricanes form in what meteorologists call "basins." Americans are most familiar with the Atlantic basin, which includes storms that form in the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The vast majority of storms that affect the U.S. are Atlantic basin storms.

The Pacific has two basins with storms that impact the U.S., in the eastern and central parts of the ocean. Eastern and central Pacific storms rarely affect land areas and typically head out to sea. However, they can sometimes impact the west coast of Mexico, the Southwest U.S. and Hawaii.

The Atlantic and eastern Pacific basins have a six-year rotating list of names to identify the storms, updated and maintained by the World Meteorological Organization, NOAA said. The Central Pacific basin has its own rotating list of Hawaiian names.

Often storms will cross from the eastern to the central Pacific basins. In that case, the original name of the storm is kept; this will happen with Hurricane Gilma later this week. Only if the storm first forms in the Central Pacific basin will it get a Hawaiian name, such as Hurricane Hone.