Hawaii prepares for first direct hit from hurricane in 22 years as second storm looms

Hurricane Iselle and Hurricane Julio (R) are pictured en route to
Hawaii in this August 5, 2014 NASA handout satellite image.
Hurricane Iselle is expected to make landfall on
Hawaii August 7, 2014.(Reuters / NASA)

RT | Aug 7, 2014

The Big Island of Hawai’i is bracing for a double whammy of hurricanes to make landfall between Thursday and Monday, according to the National Weather Service. The last time the archipelago took a direct hit from a hurricane was 1992.

Iselle, a Category 1 storm, is forecast to arrive on Hawai’i Thursday night local time, then weaken and continue on to the rest of the islands by Friday, according to Weather.com. The storm defied expectations that it would weaken to a tropical storm over the course of the day Wednesday. Iselle is roughly 300 miles east-southeast of Hilo, on the island’s eastern corner. It is moving quickly, at 15-20 mph.

"The real effects will probably be felt on the Big Island starting around noon" (6 p.m. ET) on Thursday, Norman Hui, a National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist in Honolulu, told USA TODAY. "The worst of it will be tonight. This storm is holding together pretty well."

The storm is currently weakening, and forecasters are unsure whether it will make landfall as a hurricane or a tropical storm, Weather.com reported. At 7 a.m. Hawaiian time (5 p.m. GMT), Iselle had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, placing it in the middle of the Cat-1 range (74-95 mph) on the Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC).

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