Hurricane Fossie Update

I don't know if I have any Hawaiian readers since Kahuna moved to San Fransisco but I hope these posts are dong some good in letting people know what is coming.

It looks like Hurricane Flossie will primarily affect the big island of Hawaii. There are already tropical storm warnings and a hurricane watch for the island. The storm has decreased a bit in intensity but is still a dangerous storm at Cat 3.

HURRICANE FLOSSIE REMAINS A DANGEROUS HURRICANE WITH A CLEAR WELL-DEFINED EYE AND GOOD OUTFLOW...ESPECIALLY TO THE NORTH. HOWEVER...CLOUD TOPS HAVE WARMED SLIGHTLY OVER THE PAST SIX HOURS AND AIRCRAFT RECON EXTRAPOLATED A SURFACE WIND SPEED OF 103 KT AT 1830Z. THIS CONTRASTS WITH A CI OF 6.0 OR 115 KT FROM JTWC AND SAB AT 1733Z AND 1800Z...RESPECTIVELY. TO SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE...WE WILL INITIALIZE FLOSSIE AT 110 KT FOR THIS RUN...MAKING FLOSSIE A CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR SIMPSON SCALE. THIS DROP IN INTENSITY MAY BE BRIEF SINCE SATELLITE LOOPS HINT AT A CYCLE OF EYEWALL CONVECTIVE INTENSITY.

As I suspected, the storm will remain at hurricane strength as is passes Hawaii and then decrease to a tropical storm only after it has moved away from land, or at least our land. There are plenty of islands in the Pacific that can still be affected by this storm.

So how do you evacuate from a tropical island when a storm approaches anyway? Well if you stick to the plan that was discussed at the hurricane conference here in Houston, you "Run from the water and hide from the wind".

In other words - seek high ground and then hunker down.