00:00What is happening with Lala? Alex, we've been watching it all morning as it slowly but surely got more organized.
00:06Yeah, we talked about it earlier that we were starting to notice more showers and thunderstorms starting to develop around
00:11that center of circulation.
00:13Indeed, it continued to do that through the morning, and the National Hurricane Center has officially designated Tropical Storm Lala
00:20southeast of Hawaii, well to the southeast right now.
00:23You can see those showers and thunderstorms really starting to blossom there in that circle there, indicating that the storm
00:29has really gained organization here just over the last couple of hours.
00:34So now we have the Tropical Storm, the official designation, and we'll be watching it as it's moving to the
00:38northwest over the next couple of days.
00:41Now, we've been talking about this for the last couple of days, and we did issue our I-PATH within
00:46the last couple of days here, but some updates.
00:49We do think this gets to hurricane strength now.
00:51Yeah, we do, but it's probably going to get there.
00:53At least right now, the thinking is that it would happen after the Hawaiian Islands, but we want to caution
00:58people.
00:58We are still forecasting a high-end tropical storm as it's passing just south of the islands, and it would
01:05just need a couple more miles per hour.
01:07So it's going to be moving over really warm water, so it's not out of the question that this storm
01:12could be a hurricane as it's passing south of the islands.
01:16A really close track to this was Hone, Hurricane Hone, 2024.
01:21It passed about 50 miles or so south of the Big Island as a Category 1 hurricane, but it still
01:27brought two feet of rain to portions of the Big Island.
01:29So even if this never makes landfall, we still need to watch it closely as there still could be big,
01:35big impacts.
01:36Yeah, we'll get into the impacts in a second, but one interesting thing that you've been saying, Alex,
01:40is there's never actually been a hurricane landfall on the Big Island and very few tropical storm landfalls.
01:47This is a rare situation if we did have a landfall, which we're not forecasting right now.
01:52Yeah, most of the tropical systems either move north or south of the Big Island.
01:57You know, it's really hard to get a hurricane to go directly into the Big Island.
02:01In fact, it's really never happened since 1900.
02:04There's been a couple of tropical storms that have done it, but they're few and far between.
02:08So it's a very rare event for a storm to hit the Big Island directly, make a landfall there.
02:13But again, even if the storm comes within 100 miles of the Big Island, it can still bring significant impacts.
02:20And the main one that we're watching, the potential for up to two feet of rain, similar to you just
02:25mentioned, Hone.
02:26Again, that's a really good example, a recent example that a lot of people can look back upon, Hurricane Hone.
02:32Again, 2024 at the end of August, that storm, again, brought about two feet of rain in its highest totals.
02:37To eastern portions of the Big Island.
02:41And then some of the other islands also saw significant flooding as well.
02:44So we saw mudslides with Hone.
02:46We're expecting the same thing again with this one in those higher elevations.
02:51So we want people to be aware.
02:52We were talking about a little bit of storm surge as well and some stronger winds.
02:57Indeed we are.
02:58As the storm comes through there, those winds are really going to start to increase, I think, Friday afternoon and
03:03evening.
03:03Hawaii time and then go throughout the weekend as well.
03:07So right now we're calling for a wide swath of 40 to 60 mile per hour winds with the core
03:12of the winds, those higher 60 to 80, more concentrated on the Big Island.
03:17And I think the highest winds would be across the higher elevations.
03:20Now, of course, if the storm trends back to the north or if it intensifies into a hurricane prior to
03:25getting to the islands, you know, we may be seeing a little bit higher winds.
03:29But for now, given the current track, given that we still think it's going to remain just south of the
03:33islands, we still anticipate, you know, most of the islands still able to get those 40 to 60 mile per
03:39hour gusts.
03:40And again, the timeline we're looking at Friday through the weekend.
03:44But this is not the only thing that we're tracking, Alex.
03:46We're keeping a close eye on the Atlantic as well.
03:49Indeed we are tracking two tropical waves out there across the main development region right now.
03:54That lead wave, that first one, has a high chance of developing here in the next day or two as
03:59it approaches the Lesser Antilles.
04:01It is starting to run into some wind shear, which will prevent any rapid intensification.
04:06But we still could see this become a tropical depression or low-end tropical storm over the next day or
04:12two here as it approaches the islands for the weekend.
04:15If that happens, or regardless of if that happens or not, we still expect rain across the islands, which is
04:22very beneficial, honestly,
04:23because they've been in a pretty severe drought across the Lesser Antilles.
04:27So a lot of folks there will welcome the rain.
04:29We just don't want to see any flooding.
04:31And it doesn't look like at the current time we would be seeing any significant rainfall.
04:35So I think most of it would be beneficial whether it does get a name or not.
04:40And then there's that second wave that we're watching.
04:42And as we talk about some of the factors here, the first wave, it's having an influence on what conditions
04:49that second wave has to work with.
04:51It is.
04:52It's kind of priming the pump for the second wave in a way.
04:54It's kind of pushing away some of that dry air that's in front of it.
04:58You can really see that on this graphic here, the dry air represented by the orange and yellow colors here.
05:03That first wave is kind of pushing some of that dry air out of the way.
05:06Second one is still feeling some dry air, of course, but it's not as much as you can see.
05:11The first one is almost surrounded.
05:12The second one only has some there on the northern side.
05:15So the first one is helping the second one a little bit as it moves west.
05:20The other factor, and you mentioned it, but we want to show the map as well, wind shear.
05:25That's something that's about to cause some problems for these waves.
05:28It is, and again, we kind of mentioned this is why we don't anticipate any rapid intensification, honestly, with either
05:34wave,
05:35but certainly with that first wave here because it's going to be running into this wall of wind shear,
05:40these hostile winds that's really going to rip the storm apart or any developing storm apart.
05:46So we do expect it to reach the Lesser Antilles this weekend, but it likely would be something lower end
05:52or maybe even just a tropical wave where rain would be the primary impact.
05:56But again, those areas really need the rain pretty desperately.
06:00So a lot of that rain will be pretty welcome.
06:02As for that second wave, dealing with a little bit less wind shear right now,
06:06we're going to have to keep an eye on that wave,
06:08but it still would be about 10 or more days away from the United States.
06:12So plenty, plenty of time to watch it.
06:14And again, not anticipating any rapid intensification with that second wave at this time.
06:20It's that time of year, though, Alex.
06:22We're headed right into the peak of hurricane season in the Atlantic.
06:25So you and the team here, we're watching every wave that comes off the coast of Africa.
06:31Yeah, indeed we are.
06:32And that's something we're going to have to watch for.
06:34We really start to look towards Africa in the month of August.
06:37And here we are midway through August, and we're really watching out there.
06:41It's only going to pick up a little bit as we go throughout the month of September, I think.
06:44So you've been hearing us talk about El Nino keeping those numbers down overall across the Atlantic.
06:50But that doesn't mean we're not going to be seeing any activity.
06:53It's still important to monitor the forecast closely.
06:55I always like to reference 1992.
06:58There was only a handful of storms that year, but a lot of people remember Hurricane Andrew.
07:02That was a big Category 5 that hit southern Florida.
07:05So even if we see 10 or less named storms this year, we can still see some impactful storms.
07:11We've already seen two named storms that impacted the United States directly.
07:15That's why we have to watch the rest of the season,
07:17because we still could see those impacts despite fewer named storms overall.
07:22Yeah, I was going to say, Alex, it may be an El Nino year,
07:24but we've already seen more U.S. impacts than we saw last year.
07:27All right, thank you for joining us.
07:29And for your insight, as always, we'll keep checking back in with you
07:31as we go throughout the next several weeks.
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