Archive replay · live forecasts → CPHC
The Central Pacific hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30. But the calendar underneath it is far more peaked than those six months suggest: of the 104 storms to pass within 500 km of the islands since 1950, 89 percent made their closest pass in July, August or September, and August alone accounts for 40 percent. If you prepare for one stretch of the year, it is late summer.
| Month | Closest passes |
|---|---|
| January | 0 |
| February | 0 |
| March | 0 |
| April | 0 |
| May | 0 |
| June | 1 |
| July | 24 |
| August | 42 |
| September | 27 |
| October | 8 |
| November | 1 |
| December | 1 |
The season's official walls are soft. The earliest closest pass in this archive is Barbara on 26 June 2001; the latest is Nina on 2 December 1957 — after the season had officially ended. And Iwa, one of the two most damaging hurricanes in the modern record, struck Kauai on 23 November, a week before the calendar closed. The season is a habit, not a wall.
Season to season, the biggest known dial is ENSO: El Niño seasons average about twice the storms of La Niña seasons near Hawaiʻi — though Iniki arrived on a neutral ocean, so the quiet phases are quieter, never safe. Within any season, the watch-and-warning system gives about two days of specific notice, on forecasts measured here to be more than twice as accurate as in the early 1990s.
What to do with the calendar is simpler than the meteorology: have the kit standing before June, and know what a watch asks of you before one is issued.
Watches, warnings and evacuation orders come only from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center and your county. This page explains the system; it is not part of it.
Season dates: Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Every count on this page is computed from this archive's NOAA best-track data at build time.