Hurricane Hone Brushes Past Hawaii

AFP/APP

Los Angeles: Hurricane Hone, a Category 1 storm, brushed past Hawaii’s largest island on Sunday, bringing heavy rain and dangerous swells, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

The Pacific storm, with maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour (130 kilometers per hour), was “gradually moving away from the Big Island,” the agency reported at 11:00 am local time (2100 GMT).

“Tropical storm conditions will persist on the Big Island into the early afternoon, with winds and rainfall gradually diminishing through the evening,” the agency added.

The storm was expected to bring between three and eight inches (7.6 to 20.3 centimeters) of rain to the island of Hawaii and its surrounding smaller islands.

Local TV station KHON2 reported that beaches had been closed and emergency shelters opened, while poweroutage.us indicated that more than 23,000 customers of the Hawaiian Electric Company were without power.

The NHC warned that the storm was “producing life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” along the coastlines.

Following Hone, whose name means “sweet and soft” in Hawaiian, was Hurricane Gilma, a more powerful Category 3 storm on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale. However, Gilma, located some 1,365 miles from Hawaii, was expected to weaken, according to the hurricane center.