A hurricane warning has been issued for the westernmost Hawaiian islands of Kauai and Niihau as Category 3 Hurricane Lowell approached the US Pacific island chain, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) says.
The core of Lowell was expected to pass just west of Niihau on Monday night or early Tuesday, the centre said in its latest bulletin released.
“Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the NHC said.
The centre warned that the combination of a storm surge and tide could flood normally dry areas near the coast in Kauai and Niihau, and a flash flood warning was issued for Kauai on Monday (local time).
A tropical storm warning was also issued for the island of Oahu, where Honolulu is located.
The storm was expected to dump 15-25cm of rain on Kauai, with 10-20cm of rain forecast for Oahu and the Big Island.
The storm was about 570km southwest of Honolulu and moving in north-northeasterly direction, the centre said.
Lowell, which was packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph, was expected to gradually weaken on Tuesday (local time) and then turn toward the northwest early Wednesday (local time) after passing the Hawaiian islands.
The storm briefly reached Category 5 strength earlier this week, but has since weakened to a Category 3.
Hawaii is still recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Lala, which grazed the southern part of the Big Island last month, bringing destructive winds and flash floods.
Lowell is one of two storms in the Pacific Ocean right now, where a near-record strength El Nino climate episode warms the waters. Tropical Storm Marie, about 1126km southwest of San Diego, was moving west away from land.
El Nino is the warming phase of a natural cycle in the tropical Pacific known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). It comes along every two to seven years.
ENSO promotes hurricane formation in the tropical Pacific while decreasing their likelihood in the Atlantic.
Climate change increases El Nino’s global weather impacts.