Two major hurricanes at once adds to uncertainty in Lowell forecasts

News admin September 3, 2026 0 Comments

Two major hurricanes at once adds to uncertainty in Lowell forecasts

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Winds have been picking up and surf has been on the rise. Those are just two of the impacts from Hurricane Lowell. But the rest of Lowell’s forecast is still filled with a large chunk of uncertainty.

That uncertainty also comes from the experts at the National Weather Service, as forecasters deal with not only Lowell, but Hurricane Karina to the east.

“I don’t know if I can tell you if there’s one particular reason why the spread’s been so large, but I do know the interaction, or the potential interaction of the two storms adds a little bit of uncertainty out there at a very critical time for us, when it’s potentially going to be quite close to one of our main islands,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Stephen Parker.

The latest forecast track moves the storm closer to Kauai, which was devastated in 1992 by Hurricane Iniki, the most destructive storm in Hawaii history.

Iniki was south of the islands when it turned north toward the Garden Isle. Hurricane Walaka took a similar path in 2018, but stayed far enough away that Hawaii only felt its giant surf swell.

Right now, Lowell is expected to make a sharp right turn, taking it to the south-southwest of Kauai five days from now. That’s how far the National Hurricane Center forecast goes. After that, confidence in the forecast is very low.

“You look back historically, what is the average error for a forecast beyond 120 hours? It’s pretty large. It’s in the neighborhood of 100 miles on either side of a line, so we just don’t know where it’s going to go yet,” said Parker.

There are also a lot more computer forecast models than there were when Iniki hit. Some of those models go out more than five days, and they’re being posted on social media.

“People do have a tendency in the big wide world of the internet to take the most sensational thing they can do and put it out there for clicks,” said Parker.

He also said people should use this time to prepare.

“It’s not a time to panic yet. There’s some uncertainty in the forecast and we have some time before this thing potentially approaches at least one of our islands.”