It’s been almost a month since hurricanes Lester and Madeline skirted Hawaii Island, eventually being downgraded to tropical storms and not coming ashore.
But any thoughts one might have about an early end to hurricane season were dashed Tuesday as Tropical Depression 19-E organized overnight into Tropical Storm Ulika.
At 5 p.m. Friday, Ulika was 1,145 miles east-southeast of Hilo, packing maximum sustained winds of 65 mph and traveling northeast at 7 mph.
“It’s a little far out to know what’s going to happen … ,” Pete Donaldson, a forecaster for the National Weather Service, said Tuesday afternoon. “It’s almost a week away, so it’s too early to tell what sort of impact it’s going to have.
“It may affect us, but it’s heading to the northeast and it’s southeast of us, so it’s getting farther away. Before it could affect us, it would have to turn back towards the west, which it probably will do at some point. But then, it would probably be, like, Sunday before the remnant would be in the area of the islands.”
Ulika is expected to make a turn toward the north today and tonight and then veer west Thursday and gradually continue before weakening back into a tropical depression and ultimately into a remnant low-pressure system.
“It has been intensifying, and it’s probably going to do so for awhile, so it’ll get stronger before it starts to weaken,” Donaldson said. “In general, the systems, when you start to get into the fall, tend to be impacted more by upper level (low-pressure) troughs.”
He said Ulika also will lose steam when it runs into cooler waters on its northward path.
“People should be prepared for big surf, heavy rain and strong winds, but it’s a mistake to wait and see what the system’s going to do before you do that,” he said. “The later in the year we get, the less active the tropical cyclones tend to be, but we’re heading into the rainy season anyway, so we have to prepare for the rainy system the next few months. The traditional rainy season in Hawaii starts in October and it doesn’t take a hurricane for us to get a lot of rain in Hawaii.”
Hurricane season runs through November and Donaldson said residents should have their hurricane preparations in place regardless of what Ulika does.
“The best time to get ready is not when you think you’re going to get hit by a hurricane tomorrow,” he said. “The (bottled) water’s going to be gone. There won’t be anything to board up your windows with. The weather might already be bad and you’ll have trouble getting out and around. It’s much better to be prepared well ahead of time than wait and try to be prepared for a specific weather system.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
