Hurricane Nolo

Hurricane — Category 2 Nolo is packing 85-kt (100-mph) winds, moving W at 8 kt (9 mph). Expected to stay over open water.

At 1100 PM HST (0900 UTC), the center of Hurricane Nolo was located near latitude 16.5 North, longitude 157.3 West. Nolo is moving toward the west near 9 mph (15 km/h) and this general motion is expected to continue through Sunday. A turn toward the northwest is expected Sunday night, with this general motion continuing through Tuesday. On the forecast track, the center of Nolo will remain well south and southwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 100 mph (155 km/h) with higher gusts. Nolo is predicted to strengthen into a major hurricane on Sunday or Sunday night and reach its peak intensity by Monday. Weakening is expected thereafter. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 35 miles (55 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 150 miles (240 km). The estimated minimum central pressure is 967 mb (28.56 inches).— National Hurricane Center · public advisory 27

Nolo tracks over open water — no coast is in the outlook. Along its path, our forecast reads:

This is the East Pacific · 14°N–27°N, 172°W–155°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.