The 2024 Northeast Pacific hurricane season, which had been quiet up until recently, got a late-week shot in the arm. On August 25, Hurricane Hone-which had developed from a disturbance well southeast of Hawaii-reached Category 1 intensity before passing south of the Big Island, according to the NASA Earth Observatory.
Though Hone did not strike the island chain directly, it still delivered damaging winds, soaking rains, and life-threatening surf. Some parts of Hawaii received more than 10 inches (25 centimetres) of rain within 24 hours and faced localised flash floods. Some 24,000 utility customers lost power initially, though the number dropped to 2,400 by the afternoon of August 26, according to PowerOutage.us.
Meanwhile, as Hone continued to move along west, Hurricane Gilma did the same, reaching Category 3 but was likely weakening owing to unfavourable weather. In the eastern Pacific, the other troublemaker was Tropical Storm Hector, expected to fade.
This new breed of planetary storms received further attention from the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA), which is thought to have combined three of the most powerful storms in Earth's memory into a stunning video showing them wreak havoc over an ocean.
These planetary storms are documented in the video as merging over the vast ocean.
This season has seen the Northeast Pacific spawn just nine named storms, most of them very short-lived despite that late surge. Nevertheless, Hone and Gilma, collectively, did a lot to put a better dent in the overall activity for the basin this season. Researchers say that so far this season, accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, is running below the historical average, according to the NASA Earth Observatory.
While direct hits to Hawaii are quite rare, tropical storms do occasionally make runs at the state. Strong wind shear, a steering high-pressure system, and colder ocean temperatures usually break apart or weaken the storm before it makes a direct landfall on the islands.
