Hawaii residents can expect to see a below-normal hurricane season this year, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.
The NOAA experts, unveiling their forecast for the 2024 hurricane season, predict one to four tropical cyclones in the Central Pacific basin.
Christopher Brenchley, director of the National Weather Service’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center, explained that the relatively mild nature of this season is the result of cooling waters near the equator, which are expected to produce a La Nina condition. Such a condition could generate additional wind shear near Hawaii and across the Central Pacific, potentially keeping tropical cyclones from developing.
Experts say that the probability of La Nina developing will become increasingly likely by mid to late summer.
NOAA’s forecast marks a drastic change in the current conditions across the Pacific, Brenchley said.
The 2023 season was characterized by El Nino conditions, and was ultimately considered to be relatively normal. During that time, the Central Pacific saw four tropical cyclones, with one of them — Hurricane Dora — extending from the East Pacific to the West Pacific.
While the upcoming season is expected to be milder than last season, nothing is set in stone.
In 2020’s below-normal hurricane season, Hurricane Douglas, the strongest hurricane to cross from the Eastern Pacific basin to the Central Pacific basin since 2018, narrowly passed portions of the Hawaiian islands.
“Even with the below normal activity expected, this is our chance to get ready,” said John Bravender, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. “We can’t tell you whether the below normal activity will be a 2017, where we barely have anything in the basin, or a 2020, where Douglas skirted by just to our north.”
Brenchley urged residents to be prepared for anything and to have enough emergency supplies to last them 14 days.
“As we face the potential threat of a hurricane, it’s important to prepare for that threat this season, and not (wait) for a season where we expect it to be more active,” Brenchley said. “Any action that you take now, however small, helps the community to be more resilient in the event of a storm impacting the community.”
Kevin Kodama, a Senior Service Hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Forecast Office in Honolulu, encouraged similar action.
“It only takes one storm to change your life, your family and your community,” he said. “Before this year’s hurricane season begins, the state of Hawaii encourages everyone to be aware of their vulnerabilities of hurricane hazards and (to) develop an emergency plan.”
