HILO — Despite a busy season in the Atlantic, this year’s hurricane season for Hawaii has been slower than average.
A total of two storms were recorded in the central Pacific basin so far this season, said Kevin Kodama, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Honolulu. The basin, which includes Hawaii, normally records between four to five annually.
For comparison, at least 15 storms have been recorded this year in the Atlantic basin, eight of which were hurricanes. They include Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria which have been among the costliest and most damaging storms on record.
The hurricane season ends Nov. 30 but July and August are often the busiest months.
“Most of the storms stayed to the east of our basin boundaries,” Kodama said. “We only had two come across (the central Pacific) and they didn’t last long. The last three years have been very active. The Big Island was hit two out of the last three years — in 2014 (Tropical Storm Iselle) and in 2016 (Tropical Storm Darby) — so I think a break was nice.”
In 2015, 17 storms were recorded in the central Pacific, one of the busiest seasons on record.
Last spring, some forecasters had predicted 2017 also could be a busy year due to a developing El Nino weather pattern which has a “strong correlation with an active season.”
That didn’t last long, Kodama said, because “all the early signals of El Nino faded out.”
“It then went to neutral — neither El Nino or La Nina,” Kodama said. “And the most recent climate predictions favor La Nina for the winter. That really shut the season down.”
Neither of this year’s storms — Hurricane Fernanda and Tropical Storm Greg — came close to Hawaii. Both were recorded in July.
Email Kirsten Johnson at kjohnson@hawaiitribune-herald.com.