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Mostly, yes — but the folklore needs two corrections. Across 76 finished seasons, El Niño years average 1.7 storms within 500 km of the islands and La Niña years 0.8 — a factor of 2.1. The quiet signal is the reliable one: it is La Niña that empties the ocean around Hawaii. And the worst disaster in this archive did not wait for El Niño at all.
| Season | Storms | ASO ONI | Phase |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 1 | -0.6 | La Niña |
| 1951 | 0 | +1.0 | El Niño |
| 1952 | 0 | +0.0 | neutral |
| 1953 | 0 | +0.6 | El Niño |
| 1954 | 0 | -0.7 | La Niña |
| 1955 | 0 | -1.1 | La Niña |
| 1956 | 0 | -0.4 | neutral |
| 1957 | 3 | +1.1 | El Niño |
| 1958 | 1 | +0.3 | neutral |
| 1959 | 2 | -0.0 | neutral |
| 1960 | 0 | +0.2 | neutral |
| 1961 | 0 | -0.3 | neutral |
| 1962 | 1 | -0.2 | neutral |
| 1963 | 1 | +1.1 | El Niño |
| 1964 | 0 | -0.7 | La Niña |
| 1965 | 0 | +1.6 | El Niño |
| 1966 | 1 | -0.1 | neutral |
| 1967 | 2 | -0.4 | neutral |
| 1968 | 0 | +0.3 | neutral |
| 1969 | 0 | +0.6 | El Niño |
| 1970 | 1 | -0.7 | La Niña |
| 1971 | 1 | -0.7 | La Niña |
| 1972 | 2 | +1.5 | El Niño |
| 1973 | 0 | -1.3 | La Niña |
| 1974 | 1 | -0.5 | La Niña |
| 1975 | 0 | -1.3 | La Niña |
| 1976 | 2 | +0.6 | El Niño |
| 1977 | 0 | +0.5 | El Niño |
| 1978 | 5 | -0.4 | neutral |
| 1979 | 0 | +0.3 | neutral |
| 1980 | 1 | -0.2 | neutral |
| 1981 | 1 | -0.1 | neutral |
| 1982 | 5 | +1.4 | El Niño |
| 1983 | 3 | -0.4 | neutral |
| 1984 | 1 | -0.3 | neutral |
| 1985 | 2 | -0.3 | neutral |
| 1986 | 1 | +0.6 | El Niño |
| 1987 | 0 | +1.5 | El Niño |
| 1988 | 3 | -1.3 | La Niña |
| 1989 | 1 | -0.3 | neutral |
| 1990 | 1 | +0.3 | neutral |
| 1991 | 1 | +0.7 | El Niño |
| 1992 | 4 | -0.1 | neutral |
| 1993 | 1 | +0.2 | neutral |
| 1994 | 5 | +0.5 | El Niño |
| 1995 | 0 | -0.8 | La Niña |
| 1996 | 1 | -0.3 | neutral |
| 1997 | 1 | +2.0 | El Niño |
| 1998 | 1 | -1.0 | La Niña |
| 1999 | 1 | -1.0 | La Niña |
| 2000 | 1 | -0.4 | neutral |
| 2001 | 1 | -0.1 | neutral |
| 2002 | 0 | +0.8 | El Niño |
| 2003 | 2 | +0.2 | neutral |
| 2004 | 0 | +0.6 | El Niño |
| 2005 | 2 | -0.1 | neutral |
| 2006 | 1 | +0.5 | El Niño |
| 2007 | 2 | -1.1 | La Niña |
| 2008 | 0 | -0.2 | neutral |
| 2009 | 3 | +0.7 | El Niño |
| 2010 | 0 | -1.4 | La Niña |
| 2011 | 1 | -0.8 | La Niña |
| 2012 | 1 | +0.4 | neutral |
| 2013 | 2 | -0.3 | neutral |
| 2014 | 3 | +0.2 | neutral |
| 2015 | 7 | +2.0 | El Niño |
| 2016 | 6 | -0.4 | neutral |
| 2017 | 0 | -0.2 | neutral |
| 2018 | 4 | +0.5 | El Niño |
| 2019 | 3 | +0.3 | neutral |
| 2020 | 1 | -0.8 | La Niña |
| 2021 | 1 | -0.6 | La Niña |
| 2022 | 1 | -0.9 | La Niña |
| 2023 | 1 | +1.5 | El Niño |
| 2024 | 2 | -0.1 | neutral |
| 2025 | 1 | -0.4 | neutral |
The busiest season in the record is an El Niño season: 2015 holds the ceiling with 7 storms near the islands (ASO ONI +2.0, at the height of the strongest El Niño episode in the ONI record) — among them Guillermo, Ela, Hilda. Iwa struck Kauai in November 1982, at the peak of another major El Niño. Warm equatorial water pushes the eastern Pacific's breeding ground west and cuts the wind shear that usually tears storms apart before they reach Hawaiian longitudes. A La Niña season has never produced more than 3 storms here; 19 La Niña seasons in 76 years brought 15 storms in total.
Iniki is routinely filed under the 1991–92 El Niño, and the event was real: that winter the index peaked at +1.5. But El Niño events peak in winter, and by the September week Iniki crossed Kauai the ASO index had fallen to -0.1 — a neutral ocean by every threshold. The deadliest, costliest storm in this archive arrived in a season the folklore calls safe. That is the second correction, and the one that matters for preparedness: the phases shift the odds, and 76 seasons of odds say no phase has ever meant zero.
The index is rising again: the latest value on NOAA's table (MJJ 2026) stands at +1.4, El Niño territory if it holds through autumn. The archive is already tracking this season's storms as they happen — and for anything on the map right now, the forecast that matters comes from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center, not from a historical average.
Storm seasons are counted from this archive: every tropical cyclone whose NOAA best track passed within 500 km of the main islands, 104 storms across 1950–2025; the season in progress is excluded until it is re-analysed. ENSO phase is NOAA CPC's Oceanic Niño Index for August–October, at the standard ±0.5 °C thresholds. The samples are small — 22 El Niño seasons, 19 La Niña — so the means above describe this record, not a law; and a count of storms near the islands is not a count of landfalls, which are rarer and noisier still.