While Madeline turned to the south as it approached the islands earlier this week, Lester is expected to turn to the north on its approach during the holiday weekend. The tropical storm left parts of Hawaii’s Big Island soggy but intact as residents of the island state prepare for a second round of potentially volatile tropical weather. Madeline, recently downgraded to a category one storm from category four, is expected to make landfall on the southern coast of Hawaii on Thursday morning. Hurricane Lester remains on track to impact the islands this weekend, but possibly after being downgraded to a tropical storm. That puts the eye of the storm around 725 miles (1,170 km) west of Faial Island in the Central Azores, and about 810 miles (1,310 km) west of Lajes Air Base, Azores.
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The International Space Station offers us some pretty unbelievable views of our planet and recently NASA released video of the space station passing over not one, not two, but three active hurricanes across the globe!
With one storm barreling toward the island state after another, some Hawaii residents said they’re developing a special skill at preparing for storms, in a cycle of boarding up windows and then taking the protections down, again and again.
Elsewhere, forecasters say Tropical Storm Hermine could strike the South as a hurricane.
And Hurricane Gaston isn’t the only major storm staking its claim in the Atlantic Ocean.
Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 35 miles from the center of the storm. Drier air and strong upper atmosphere winds are weakening Hurricane Madeline as it approaches.
Captain Mike Long said he expected to close Hilo Harbor to all traffic by 8 p.m. Tuesday.
The storm has maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour and was 640 miles East of Hilo Thursday afternoon. The power went off in the hillside neighborhood but the lights in most of downtown Honolulu remained on. Water has receded after waves crashed into a seawall that surrounds Liliuokalani Gardens Park at Hilo Bay. Water accumulated on the grass of the gardens, leaving stairs of a pavilion partially submerged. “I saw the sun this morning when I was driving into work”, Kanani Aton, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii County civil defence agency, said.
Heavy rains associated with Lester may reach Hawaii and Maui counties on Saturday, and may affect other Hawaiian Islands later Saturday and Sunday.
The National Weather Service says that now Oahu is under the watch due to Hurricane Lester.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a strong tropical storm or a category 1 hurricane”, said Eric Lau, a meteorologist with the weather service. Lester is packing winds of 105 miles per hour.
We’re not out of the woods yet. Those strong storms were becoming more distanced from the storm’s circulation center. When a tropical cyclone crosses the 140 degree west longitude line, it has moved into the Central Pacific Ocean and warnings on the system will be issued by NOAA’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC). And on the East Coast, a tropical storm warning was issued for an area extending from Marineland, Florida, northward to the South Santee River in SC.
A hurricane warning was in effect for Florida’s Big Bend from the Suwannee River to Mexico Beach. She also has a cooler with ice plus a portable burner and batteries to get her through the storm.
“There’s always a lot of disbelief on the island that the storms will really be as big and bad as forecast”, she said, noting that she and her partner had taken precautions to protect their beehives.
Gov. David Ige has issued an emergency proclamation for both Madeline and Lester, allowing the state to quickly spend money.
Hawaii County and Maui County, which includes Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kahoolawe, are under a hurricane watch.
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