Hurricane Kiko’s course has shifted and the major storm is now headed straight for Hawaii in a rare weather event for the islands.
New spaghetti models of the Category 2 hurricane project that the storm will strike Hawaii’s Big Island by next week.
Kiko is currently building in strength in the eastern Pacific Ocean, with local meteorologists now predicting it will become major Category 3 hurricane Wednesday.
The storm has sustained winds of more than 100 mph after reaching hurricane status early Tuesday morning.
The last major hurricane to directly strike Hawaii was Hurricane Iniki in September 1992.
It struck as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 145 mph on September 11, causing an estimated $3 billion in damage.
As forecasters in Hawaii feared, Kiko’s path appears to have shifted slightly to the right, taking it towards the US islands and away from turbulent air that would have weakened the hurricane’s structure.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has projected that Kiko will be within 500 miles of Hawaii by late Sunday night.
New prediction models for Hurricane Kiko warn that the storm may make a direct hit on Hawaii’s Big Island in the coming days
The last major hurricane above Category 3 to directly strike Hawaii was Hurricane Iniki in 1992 (Stock Image)
Officials in Hawaii have not issued any hurricane warnings or alerts as of Wednesday morning.
The weather team from Hawaii News Now noted that it’s still too early to accurately predict if the hurricane will make landfall on the Big Island (Hawaii Island), but the number of models projecting a direct hit have been growing.
A spaghetti model shows the different possible paths a tropical storm or hurricane might take, based on predictions from multiple weather computer programs.
Each line represents one model’s guess about where the storm could go. If the lines are close together, it means most models agree on the path, and the prediction is more certain.
Forecasters at NHC have projected that Kiko will continue to strengthen, churning into a major hurricane, until Saturday.
At that point, meteorologists expect the hurricane to weaken as it moves into cooler waters closer to Hawaii and encounters more wind shear.
That means Kiko is expected to run into stronger winds blowing at different heights in the atmosphere which can tear apart a hurricane’s structure.
The National Hurricane Center has revealed that Hurricane Kiko’s path has shifted, putting it on a course for the Hawaiian Islands next week
Hurricane Kiko entered Wednesday as a Category 2 storm with sustained winds of more than 100 mph
