Oho reaches hurricane strength southeast of Big Island

As of Wednesday morning, the Category 2 storm is located about 830 km east of Hilo, Hawaii and continues to intensify with maximum sustained winds of 165 km/h, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Note that the current forecast track has the center of Oho potentially crossing longitude 140w into the area of responsibility of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida between 24 and 36 hours from now.

Forecasters there expected Oho to stay on that path and pick up speed through Thursday evening. Although prior to the period of record, a weakening hurricane did strike southern California as a strong tropical storm in 1939.

The Pacific Northwest will see the remnants of Hurricane Oho as it trails off toward the upper part of the North American west coast. Normally that may be a cause for concern for those in the islands, as many central Pacific storms track to the west. On average the central Pacific basin sees far fewer named storms (4-5) in a given season compared to the northwest Pacific (26), lessening the opportunities for this to occur with central Pacific systems. For now, Oho associated showers are expected to focus over the Big Island today.

Widespread three-inch-plus rain totals can be expected in these areas, not only from Oho’s remnant, but from the overall stormy pattern described earlier over the Gulf of Alaska and northeast Pacific Ocean. At the same time, shear imparted by the deep trough will likely continue to ramp up in the vicinity of the system.

However, once the storm moves north of about 40 degrees latitude on Thursday, water temperature rapidly decrease and it will inevitably transition into a mid-latitude (non-tropical) cyclone, powered by temperature contrasts rather than warm waters.