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  • 2 days ago
A tropical depression is expected to sideswipe Hawaii this weekend as Tropical Storm Moke, bringing heavy rain to the Big Island. The Atlantic may get the first hurricane of 2026 in early September.

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00:00And thanks for joining the forecast feed.
00:03Meteorologist Bernie Ray, a lot of things to talk about.
00:05We're going to start in the Central Pacific.
00:07We've got what's going to be Moke, I think it's Moke, actually, Moke,
00:13that will swipe, swipe Hawaii.
00:15And I want to get into the Atlantic.
00:17We've not had a hurricane yet.
00:19I think we're going to have one in early September,
00:22but until then it looks pretty quiet.
00:24But I want to begin in the Pacific right now
00:27where we are watching our tropics.
00:30This is what's going to be Moke right here.
00:35Not consolidated yet, although you're starting to see that a little bit
00:39to the south and east of Hawaii.
00:41The other thing to take note of, and this is going to be important,
00:44you can see the outflow of this storm goes,
00:48or this system goes pretty far north.
00:51So while we do think this is going to pass Hawaii,
00:53probably between about 150 to 200 miles south of the Big Island,
00:58it's going to have an impact, and unfortunately, it's going to be rain.
01:03All right, let me show you some of the modeling with this.
01:07And, you know, we've been talking about this for the last couple of days.
01:11So here, let's go back into this evening.
01:15Here is what will be our tropical storm.
01:18Here's Hawaii.
01:19Now, think of these tropical systems as a cork in the stream, right?
01:26The cork is the storm.
01:27You have to figure out the stream flow.
01:29If you figure out the stream flow, you know where the cork's going.
01:32It's really that simple, but it's a little complicated.
01:34But as we talked about all week, the location of this trough,
01:37which is actually associated with Lala,
01:40because it's so far west, you have a trough here, trough here,
01:44and notice what you have, an anticyclonic or clockwise wind flow.
01:51This is our upper high.
01:52And remember, winds around high-pressure systems are clockwise.
01:56So the farther west the high is at the surface,
02:05the better chance that this is going to stay south of the Big Island by quite a bit.
02:13This high is anchored here.
02:14Now, I also talked about last week, if this trough, let's say, was a little farther east,
02:19that would force this high from being here to being over here.
02:23And if the high was a little farther to the east,
02:27you'd get more of a southeast wind flow that would then drive this storm right into the Big Island.
02:32But the fact that this trough remains where it is,
02:37and watch as we go through Friday, Saturday, Sunday, if anything,
02:41it moves off to the west-northwest.
02:43You see that?
02:44This is the trough I'm talking about right here.
02:47Since this is moving to the west-northwest,
02:49this tells me this high is going to stay pretty much at the same longitude as the Big Island.
02:58And because of that, the steering flow won't be out of the east-southeast,
03:03but out of the east, which should then keep this system south of the Big Island.
03:08That's what we're thinking.
03:10And again, as I show you the AccuWeather eye path,
03:13this will stay about 150 to 200 miles south of the Big Island.
03:19Now, the question is, is how strong it can get.
03:22Right now, we have a tropical storm.
03:24I think it's a little tricky.
03:27Let me show you why this may not become a hurricane.
03:32I want to show you the water vapor loop here across Hawaii.
03:37Look at all the dry air.
03:38Here is the system.
03:39And by the way, you can see the circulation.
03:41Look how far north it is.
03:43I think this is the growing area of circulation,
03:46but there is a lot of dry air in here.
03:48And it appears to me like this dry air,
03:50and here's the trough, is coming with the west-northwest flow.
03:53You see that?
03:54Or the wind's coming in out of the north here.
03:56There's a lot of dry air over the islands.
03:58So this system is coming into a dry air mass.
04:01Now, this is good news for the development standpoint.
04:05I'll tell you what.
04:07What concerns me a little bit is I don't see a lot of wind shear.
04:11I'm not saying the wind shear is perfect for development,
04:14but if you look at the wind shear in here, and let me do it this way.
04:18I want to show you the winds of 200 millibars.
04:21So you can see our system right here, Saturday morning, is right in here.
04:28To me, it does not appear to me like there's a lot of wind shear.
04:33It's right in here, and it's in an area of light winds aloft, and it's warm water.
04:40So I would not, we're not forecasting this.
04:43I would not say with 100% that this won't become a hurricane.
04:46We're not forecasting that.
04:48We have a tropical storm.
04:49But it does concern me that the wind shear looks light.
04:53At the same time, you've got a lot of dry air.
04:56So I think they may counteract each other here.
05:01But certainly the good news is that the track is not going to be coming right toward Hawaii.
05:10It's going to stay off to the south, and there's our track.
05:13Here's the big island right here.
05:15So it's going to stay south by about 150 to 200 miles.
05:19That's good news.
05:21Now, the bad news is, when you go back to the water vapor loop, while the center of circulation is
05:28way down here,
05:30look how much the moisture, how far north the moisture goes.
05:34So even if you just eyeball less, this moisture is going to be heading across the String of Pearls,
05:40and especially across the Big Island.
05:43I don't think wind's the big story here.
05:45I think the big story is going to be the rain again.
05:47Is it going to be as heavy as what happened in Lala?
05:51No.
05:52But four to eight inches of rain on the Big Island, and, of course, you've got elevations here.
05:58This is the area that got hit the hardest with Lala, with rain.
06:01And I think, you know, you may end up, we have an accurate weather local storm max of 24 inches,
06:06and I think in these mountains, you're going to get over a foot of rain, and the flash flooding is
06:10going to continue to be a problem.
06:12The time frame on this, let me go back, let me go back here to the track.
06:16So you're going to start seeing impacts as early as, you're going to start getting impacts late Saturday night,
06:23but Sunday, in the Monday, is when you're going to get the bulk of the rain,
06:28and some of it's going to be heavy, and flooding's going to be a problem.
06:31So, bad news, good news scenario, this is going to be a lot farther south than Lala.
06:38Really quickly here, we're going to have to keep an eye on the Atlantic Basin,
06:43because I believe there is a wave that's going to be coming off of Africa later this week.
06:50That may likely be our first hurricane the first week of September.
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