How close to Hawaii will Hurricane Lowell get? » Yale Climate Connections

by Bob Henson and Jeff Masters, Yale Climate Connections
September 4, 2026

While the Atlantic stayed eerily quiet as the Labor Day weekend began, three simultaneous hurricanes were churning across the central and eastern North Pacific – the first time this has happened there in 11 years. The most worrisome of the trio, Lowell, is expected to remain a major hurricane through the weekend as it carves out a tight northward turn and heads in the general direction of Hawaii.

Regardless of Lowell’s exact track, big waves will be raking Hawaii for days on end. Already on Friday, a high surf advisory was in effect on south-facing shores across the state. Large breaking waves up to 12 feet were expected.

At higher terrain, and on the northern sides of the islands, wind gusts of up to 50 mph will be possible on Friday, driven by the pressure gradient between Lowell and a strong ridge to the north of Hawaii. Those winds should abate somewhat by Saturday – ironically in part because of distant Hurricane Karina weakening that ridge – but winds should resurge on Sunday and especially Monday as Lowell approaches from the southwest.

Although Hawaii’s geographic layout is not especially prone to major storm surge, Lowell’s onshore flow on Monday will occur near the monthly peak in high tides, exacerbating any high water that does occur.

Forecast for Lowell

As of 11 p.m. HST Thursday (5 a.m. EDT Friday), Lowell was centered roughly 600 miles (960 kilometers) south of Lihue, Kauai. Top sustained winds were at 125 mph (205 km/h). Lowell surged briefly to Category 5 strength on Wednesday, making it the planet’s sixth Cat 5 of 2026. (See our previous post for more detail on the first five.) Lowell continued to move west-northwest at about 8 mph (13 km/h).

Wind shear will remain light to moderate (5-10 knots) along Lowell’s path into Sunday, and with sea surface temperatures close to 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit) and a fairly moist mid-level atmosphere, Lowell should have no trouble maintaing its strength and perhaps reintensifying to Category 4. Wind shear will increase markedly by Monday, and a gradual weakening trend should begin, as Lowell makes a sharp right turn and begins accelerating northward. Models agree strongly on the big picture of that crucial right turn, but the exact timing and location – driven in part by Karina’s weakening of the steering ridge – are difficult to pin down.

By late Monday, Lowell is expected to be racing through or just west of the sparsely populated northwestern Hawaiian Islands as a major Category 3 hurricane. There was a decreasing but still-nonzero chance on Friday that Lowell’s track might angle far enough east to bring significant impacts to Kauai or other islands, as reflected on a small minority of ensemble members from the European and GFS model runs early Friday morning. Any such easterly jog could make Lowell the highest-impact hurricane Hawaii has experienced since Iniki devastated Kauai in 1992. The National Weather Service forecast office in Honolulu put it this way late Thursday: “The extent of [the impacts from Lowell] could range from minor to major depending on the eventual path of the storm, and more specifically when the abrupt turn to the north occurs.”

If Lowell accelerates and stays just west of the major islands as predicted, that will help keep rainfall totals from hitting truly extreme values. Still, the rainfall forecast issued Friday morning by the NWS Weather Prediction Center called for widespread four-to-eight-inch amounts over most islands, with isolated totals exceeding 10 inches possible.

The three distinctly different billion-dollar weather disasters in Hawaii’s history

The only major hurricane on record to strike Hawaii was Hurricane Iniki, which hit the island of Kauai on September 11, 1992, with sustained winds of 145 mph (235 km/h) and a central pressure of 945 mb. Damage was estimated at $7.3 billion (2026 inflation-adjusted dollars), and seven people were killed.

Because Iniki moved quickly through the islands, there were no reports of significant flash flood damage from heavy rainfall. Brief clips of rainbands and post-storm damage from Iniki can be seen in the 1993 blockbuster “Jurassic Park,” which was being filmed in Kauai at the time.

Hawaii’s only other comparable weather disaster – with a damage tally similar to Iniki’s but far more loss of life – was the August 8, 2023, Lahaina firestorm on Maui, which killed 100 and caused $6 billion in damage (2026 USD). The fire’s spread was aided by winds blowing in response to an unusually strong high-pressure system northwest of Hawaii and Hurricane Dora to the south. Thousands of homes, vehicles, and businesses were destroyed.

Only one other weather event in Hawaii history has reached the billion-dollar-damage mark, and it arrived earlier this year. Back-to-back Kona low systems in March 2026 caused prolonged heavy rainfall and destructive flooding with $1 billion in damage. Rainfall totals surpassed 20 inches on Oahu, Kauai, and the Big Island, while Maui saw localized totals exceeding 40 inches. This rainfall triggered flash flooding, rapidly rising streams, and landslides, while wind gusts exceeding 70 mph downed trees, caused structural damage, and knocked out power for many residents across Maui, Oahu, and the Big Island. The flooding swept away homes, damaged airports, hospitals, schools, infrastructure, and numerous roadways.

Hawaii storm surge risk

Islands with deep water offshore, such as the Hawaiian Islands, are not very susceptible to large storm surges, since the water piled up by a hurricane’s winds can merely flow around the sides of the island. According to NOAA’s disaster report for Hurricane Iniki, about 4% of the 1,421 houses destroyed on Kauai were lost to storm surge, with wind destroying the rest. Inundations from storm surge were generally between two to four feet, with peaks along the south Kauai shore of four to six feet. A high-water mark (from the surge plus waves) of 22.2 ft (6.8 m) was recorded at Waikomo Stream near Koloa. The high waves left a debris line more than 800 feet (240 m) inland. As seen from NOAA’s hurricane storm surge risk map for Kauai (Fig. 3), a worst-case Category 3 hitting at high tide would bring only limited storm surge flooding to scattered portions of the island.

Iniki’s storm surge brought inundations of two to four feet to western Oahu, with just over five feet observed around Honolulu. As seen from NOAA’s hurricane storm surge risk map for Oahu (Fig. 4), a worst-case Category 3 hitting Oahu would be capable of flooding Honolulu’s airport with three to six feet of water, with similar inundations occurring across downtown, including Waikiki Beach.

Big swells from Hurricane Marie will push toward the Mexico and California coasts; significant rain possible in SoCal

Dangerous coastal conditions for swimmers and boaters, including deadly rip currents, will be evolving from Baja California in Mexico to Southern California over the U.S. holiday weekend as Hurricane Marie continues grinding across the open Northeast Pacific. Marie was centered at 11 a.m. EDT Friday about 550 miles (885 kilometers) west-southwest of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, with top sustained winds of 100 mph (160 km/h) making it a Category 2 storm. Light wind shear (around five knots) and warm waters of 27-28 degrees Celsius (82-84 degrees Fahrenheit) could allow Marie to strengthen slightly on Friday.

Steady weakening is expected to commence by Saturday and especially from Sunday onward as Marie moves northwest into increasingly drier air, higher wind shear, and cooler sea surface temperatures. It’s looking very unlikely that Marie or its remnants might get pulled bodily northeast into Southern California next week – a possibility that some members of various ensemble model runs had keyed on earlier in the week.

However, a slug of moisture four to five standard deviations above average (precipitable water approaching two inches) will spin off from Marie’s north edge around Sunday. Bands of showers along this moisture channel will likely train northeastward across Southern California, perhaps bringing highly unusual early-September rains to the Los Angeles Basin and somewhat heavier showers and storms toward Las Vegas and into northern Arizona and southern Utah. There’s at least a marginal chance of flash flooding throughout this corridor on Sunday, according to a Friday outlook from the NWS Weather Prediction Center. “Slot canyons may be a particularly dangerous place to be on Sunday afternoon,” the center warned.

Just twice in 149 years of recordkeeping has downtown Los Angeles received more than half an inch of rain on any one day between September 1 and 15. Those totals were 2.39 inches on September 15, 2015, and 1.74 inches on September 10, 1976.

Farther out in the open Northeast Atlantic, resilient Hurricane Karina entered its ninth day as a named storm on Friday. After peaking at Category 4 strength, Karina’s top sustained winds were down to 90 mph (160 km/h) as of 11 a.m. EDT Friday, making Karina a Cat 1 storm. Dry air and increased wind shear should pull Karina below hurricane strength by Sunday, if not sooner, as it continues moving northwest far from shore.

All quiet on the Atlantic front

According to the National Hurricane Center’s Tropical Weather Outlook issued at 8 a.m. EDT Friday, no tropical development was expected in the Atlantic through at least September 11. If this outlook proves correct, the Atlantic will make history, as no year in modern recordkeeping has gotten to September 12 without producing at least one Atlantic hurricane. The old record of September 11 was set by Humberto in 2013 and matched by Gustav in 2002. On average (1991-2020), the year’s third and fourth Atlantic hurricanes arrive on September 7 and 16, and the first and second major hurricanes have occurred by September 1 and 19.

The U.S. also averages three named-storm landfalls per year, with two of those being hurricanes. Interestingly, for this year through September 3 – with the season not quite half over – we’ve already had three named-storm landfalls: Arthur, Bertha, and Edouard. One of these, Arthur, was a billion-dollar storm. Despite these landfalls, the Atlantic’s five tropical storms to date have been generally tepid and short-lived. None of them have generated top sustained winds above 60 mph (95 km/h), and none have persisted for more than five days as tropical cyclones.

The wild contrast this year in accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, between the North Pacific and other oceanic basins testifies to the globe-spanning impact of the current fast-intensifying El Niño. As tallied by Colorado State University, here are the total ACE units for this year through September 3 and how the totals in each basin compare to a typical year (1991-2020):

North Atlantic: 4.4 (average to date = 45.1; percent of average = 10%)
Central and Eastern North Pacific: 138.4 (average to date 85.8; percent of average = 161%)
Northwest Pacific: 216.7 (average to date = 141.3; percent of average = 154%)
North Indian: 0 (average to date = 9.3; percent of average = 0%)

Irene Sans contributed to this post.

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