Just days after Hurricane Lala battered Hawaii with destructive flooding, damaging winds and widespread power outages, forecasters are now tracking two new areas of potential tropical storm development in the Pacific Ocean, raising the prospect of an active late-August hurricane pattern. According to the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) latest Tropical Weather Outlook issued late on Tuesday night, two disturbances are showing increasing signs of organization. One is expected to develop south-southwest of Mexico later this week, while another system east-southeast of Hawaii could become a tropical depression within days.
The outlook comes as Hawaii continues recovery efforts following Hurricane Lala, which narrowly avoided making official landfall but still left significant damage across the island chain. NHC map showing new tropical disturbance as of Tuesday, August 18 at 11 p.m. According to the NHC, the first area of concern is forecast to develop “several hundred miles south-southwest of the coast of southern Mexico” toward the end of the week.
The center said that gradual development is likely afterward, with a tropical depression—which is the earliest stage of a tropical cyclone, which can later strengthen into a tropical storm and then a hurricane—expected to form over the weekend as the system tracks west-northwestward over the open ocean. While the disturbance has virtually no chance of formation during the next 48 hours, forecasters are currently giving it an 80 percent chance of development over the next seven days. The second system could be more of an immediate concern, though.
A tropical wave located east-southeast of the Hawaiian Islands has shown “some signs of organization" meaning forecasters are seeing thunderstorms and circulation beginning to cluster around a developing center, rather than remaining scattered and disorganized. The NHC said that the conditions appear favorable for development, with a tropical depression likely to form within a few days as the system moves westward into the Central Pacific. Forecasters have given the disturbance a 50 percent chance of formation over the next 48 hours and an 80 percent chance over the next seven days.
Neither system currently poses an immediate threat to land, but both are expected to be monitored closely as they organize over warm tropical waters. The new threats emerge while Hawaii is still assessing the impact from Hurricane Lala, one of the most significant tropical cyclones to affect the islands in decades. Lala passed just south of Hawaii's Big Island over the weekend as a Category 1 hurricane.
Although the storm's center remained offshore and never officially made landfall, its eyewall brushed the island, bringing hurricane-force conditions and historic rainfall. Officials reported widespread flooding, washed-out roads, bridge damage, and prolonged power outages. More than 100 homes were reportedly damaged or destroyed, while entire communities were temporarily cut off by floodwaters and landslides.
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