Three storms spinning in the Pacific could all become powerful hurricanes by the weekend, and forecasters who were closely monitoring their progress were growing concerned that at least one could come uncomfortably close to land.
The storms — Marie, Karina and Lowell — were doing little harm on Tuesday, as they churned in the open water between Hawaii and North America. Each had a distinct trajectory, with most computer models favoring paths that keep them safely at sea. But even there, the storms could still have an impact on faraway land, forecasters warned.
Earlier this week, some outlier models even teased the possibility that one of the storms, Tropical Storm Marie, which formed early Tuesday off southwest Mexico, could make a rare landfall in Southern California.
The other two storms, Hurricane Lowell and Hurricane Karina, are moving toward Hawaii and could come close enough to affect the islands, even if they are likely to avoid a direct hit. Karina, a Category 3 hurricane on Tuesday, has so far been the strongest of the three, and Lowell could grow in a Category 5, the second in this region of the Pacific this year.
Does Marie really pose a risk to Southern California?
It is unlikely that Marie will hit Southern California.
But a forecast model that suggested the possibility certainly drew attention on Monday — soon followed by a chorus of hurricane experts pointing out how unusual that would be.
Hurricanes in the Pacific generally move east to west, away from mainland North America, and so they are less likely than their Atlantic counterparts to make landfall. But occasionally, an air mass can block a storm, driving it north and east. That’s what happened in 2023, when Hurricane Hilary brought damaging winds and intense rain to Southern California.
Most models suggest Marie will move north before curving west into the open Pacific, away from California. Hurricane experts warned people to take the outlier models that showed Marie moving toward the state with a grain of salt.
“When models are out there, people think the models are just real and everything they’re showing is true, and it’s just not the case,” Robbie Berg, at the National Hurricane Center, said on Tuesday. “It’s just one scenario, one possibility, and we have to account for all the possibilities that could potentially happen.”
Forecasters with the National Weather Service in San Diego said on Tuesday that the most probable impact by the storm on Southern California would be a plume of tropical moisture. That would bring a chance of rain showers and thunderstorms — relatively unusual there in August — even if the storm’s center stays far offshore.
All three of these storms, regardless of winds, rainfall and proximity, are likely to create dangerous swells along beaches in Hawaii and along the North American coast this weekend.
Hawaii is watching two storms this week.
Farther west, Lowell was tracking south of Hawaii and expected to undergo rapid intensification, a process in which a storm’s maximum sustained winds increase by at least 35 m.p.h. within 24 hours. Some forecasts suggest that Lowell could approach Category 5 strength by the end of the weekend.
While most modeling keeps Lowell south of Hawaii before the storm is steered north, predicting sharp turns in a hurricane’s path remains one of meteorology’s toughest challenges. Forecasters in Honolulu said on Tuesday that while their confidence was growing that Lowell would pass south of the state over the next several days, the storm’s trajectory over Labor Day weekend remained highly uncertain.
A move north could potentially bring Lowell closer to the western part of Hawaii, Mr. Berg said. This possible turn, though, is well beyond the five-day window in which experts are most certain about a storm’s predictability.
In Hawaii, that uncertainty carries weight: Two major hurricanes that previously hit the state approached from the south before making similar northward turns. The earlier the turn, the more likely some of the western islands could become potential targets.
And even as it passes several hundred miles to the south, the storm will increase the winds out of the northeast and enhance the ability for showers, even if the worst rain were to remain south.
Another complication to Lowell’s forecast path is Karina. Not only will that storm make a closer approach to Hawaii, but Mr. Berg said there was some potential that the two storms could pull on each other — and affect each other’s paths.
Karina was tracking west toward Hawaii on Tuesday. Though current forecasts indicated that the storm would pass hundreds of miles north of the islands, forecasters noted that its well-organized structure could allow Karina to maintain its strength longer than usual, even over cooler waters.
Some outlier models indicate that the storm could sag south and get closer to the islands by next week.
This has been a busy season in the Pacific.
There have been 13 named storms so far in this Eastern Pacific hurricane season. In an average year, the region sees roughly 15 named storms — and there are still three months before the hurricane season ends on Nov. 30.
Driven by a robust El Niño weather pattern, activity in the region is on pace to easily exceed historical averages.
This also doesn’t include Lala, which formed in the central Pacific and earned a name from a separate list and nearly made landfall in Hawaii as a hurricane last month. Lala brought excessive rain to the Big Island, causing damaging mudslides and flash flooding.
El Niño typically suppresses tropical activity in the Atlantic Ocean — while fueling hyperactive hurricane seasons across the Pacific. While these storms might now all spin as Category 4 hurricanes at the same time, the overall busy pattern is very similar to the 2015 El Niño hurricane season.
