Hurricane Nolo

Hurricane — Category 2 Nolo is packing 90-kt (105-mph) winds, moving NNE at 4 kt (5 mph). Expected to stay over open water.

At 1100 AM HST (2100 UTC), the eye of Hurricane Nolo was located by an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft near latitude 16.5 North, longitude 155.4 West. Nolo is moving toward the north- northeast near 5 mph (7 km/h), and this general motion with a decrease in forward speed is expected through tonight. A turn towards the west with an increase in forward speed is forecast Saturday and Sunday. On the forecast track, the center of Nolo will remain well south of the main Hawaiian Islands. Maximum sustained winds are near 105 mph (165 km/h) with higher gusts. Nolo is forecast to strengthen into a major hurricane this weekend, and could further intensify early next week. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles (75 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 140 miles (220 km). The estimated minimum central pressure is 978 mb (28.88 inches).— National Hurricane Center · public advisory 21

This is the East Pacific · 14°N–27°N, 169°W–153°W. Nolo’s forecast track is the dotted spine — the labelled dots mark its position each day. Every cell is shaded by how many hours it spends inside Nolo’s gale-force (≥34 kt · 39 mph) wind across the whole forecast, the damaging core counted double.

Read it two ways at once. Colour is the total — the hours of gale-force wind a place piles up. A slow storm writes its danger in duration, not in any single gust, so the longer the wind sits over a place, the deeper its colour. Opacity is confidence — solid where the official probability of that wind is high, faint where it is only a chance. So a deep, solid cell is a place the wind will work for a long time and likely will; a pale, faint one is a brief, uncertain brush at the edge of the cone.