Our live coverage has ended. Go here or scroll through the posts below to read more about Hurricane Lane.
Hurricane Lane has weakened into a Category 1 storm, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.
Lane is expected to weaken to a tropical storm later tonight, but the threat of heavy rainfall and flooding continues.
Lane was a Category 5 storm late Tuesday before weakening to a Category 4 Wednesday morning. It dropped to a Category 3 storm overnight Thursday. Lane was downgraded to Category 2 storm Friday morning.
This was only the second time in recorded history that a Category 5 hurricane came within 350 miles of Hawaii — the first one being Hurricane John in 1994 — the National Weather Service said.
Hawaii residents Joe Morgan and Natasha Truong said they fled their home early Friday after a brush fire broke out near Maui’s resort area of Lahaina.
Morgan said they had preparing for flooding from Hurricane Lane and had not expected to be evacuated because of a fire.
“We arrived at our back up location just to be adverted as the fire spread up the hill,” he wrote on Instagram. “We made it safe to an elevated parking garage to spend the night in the car as our cell phone service was out. We are safe and still bracing for the brunt of the hurricane to fill in.”
Morgan and Truong shared this video of the brush fire:
President Trump spoke today with Hawaii Gov. David Ige about response measures and preparations for Hurricane Lane, according to a White House readout of the call.
Kauai is no longer under a hurricane watch, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center reported Friday.
Instead, a tropical storm watch is in effect for Kauai, where winds could reach up to 57 mph, the hurricane center reported. Officials urged residents to prepare for wind damage.
“Plan for hazardous wind of equivalent tropical storm force due to possible forecast changes in track, size, or intensity,” the hurricane center said.
Red Cross and FEMA officials just gave an update on their efforts in Hawaii as the state continues to battle Hurricane Lane.
Here’s the latest, by the numbers:
Paul Daniel captured this video on Friday around 7 a.m. Hawaii time (or about 1 p.m. ET).
The clip shows heavy wind and rain in Pepeekeo, on the eastern side of the Big Island.
Watch:
A second brush fire, separate from the blaze that began overnight in Lahaina, has broken out in Maui, a Maui County spokesperson told CNN.
The second fire is believed to have started Friday morning, near Kannapali in West Maui, said Rod Antone, communications director for Maui County. Further details on the fire were not immediately available.
In Lahaina, more than 100 homes near that brush fire have been evacuated, Antone said.
The causes of fires have not been determined, Antone said.
Hurricane Lane is currently about 170 miles south of Honolulu, according to a 2 p.m. ET advisory from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Five Hawaiian islands — Oahu, Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kahoolawe — remain under a hurricane warning.
The advisory predicts that Lane will continue traveling northward today before turning west into the ocean tomorrow.
The 15 airports located throughout Hawaii remain open and accessible, barring infrastructure damage or debris from Hurricane Lane that makes flight operations unsafe, according to Hawaii Department of Transportation.
State firefighters are stationed at the airport facilities and are ready to respond to situations as necessary, Hawaii DOT said in a statement.
Hawaii airports will open an Emergency Operations Center today to serve as the consolidated and centralized command and control point, according to Hawaii DOT.
While the airports are open, all flights at Maui’s Lanai Airport, and all United, Ohana and Mokulele Airlines flights at Maui’s Kahului Airport have been canceled today, according to a Maui County news alert.
It is up to the airline and individual pilots to determine if conditions are safe enough to fly, Hawaii DOT said.
Here’s a map of the flights over the islands right now, from Flight Aware:
Another round of heavy rains and winds pummeled Hilo, Hawaii, on Friday.
The downpour comes a day after heavy rainfall inundated parks, soccer fields and roads in Hilo.
Here’s what it looked like on Thursday:
And this is what it looks like now:
Hurricane Lane has been a tough storm to predict. There has never really been a hurricane in this region moving in this direction — so there are no previous storms for forecasters to point to.
Why forecasters are watching the winds: As of Friday morning, Hurricane Lane was getting battered by “wind shear,” which is upper level winds blowing in different directions. That disrupts the hurricane’s ability to sustain itself and results in the storm weakening. Part of that wind shear comes from the “trade winds” — the almost constant winds that blow from east to west through Hawaii.
But Lane could be entering an area west of the Big Island where the island itself blocks those trade winds and — could allow Lane to maintain its intensity longer than it otherwise would, which isn’t good.
And then there’s the matter of the big turn. The hurricane is due to turn left eventually, but the timing is dependent upon those trade winds pushing the storm to the west.
Since we haven’t seen a storm like this in this region, just how the storm will react is all theory. But one scientist simulated this exact scenario years ago — and his results paint a potentially scary scene.
Christopher Chambers, a research scientist at Hokkaido University in Japan, has spent 10 years analyzing the effect the Big Island imparts on hurricanes around Hawaii. In his computer simulations, he took Hurricane Iniki from 1992, which struck the island of Kauai head on, and moved the storm a couple hundred miles further east so that it headed up into Oahu (pretty much the same track that Lane has taken so far).
Chambers calls this “the nightmare scenario.”
What he found was that the Big Island and its mountains blocked the trade winds and turned the storm towards the right (into Oahu and Maui).
So what happens now? Hurricane Lane is just now entering this downwind region of the Big Island, so that is why the next 12 to 18 hours will mean everything for what will happen to the storm — and consequently what the impacts will be on the populated islands of Maui and Oahu.
For Chambers, he is getting to watch his theorized scenario play out in real time.
A brush fire that started overnight near Maui’s resort area of Lahaina has jumped a highway, according to Maui County. The fire is now approaching a gas station.
“Fire officials have reported that the fire has jumped Honoapiilani Highway near Dickenson Street and is approaching Aloha Gas Station,” the county said on Facebook.
Many area roads are closed due to both the brush fire and adverse weather triggered by Hurricane Lane, the county noted.
Here’s another look at the fire:
The windward side of Hawaii’s Big Island — the east and northeast coasts — is experiencing heavy rains and flooding from Hurricane Lane, and is currently under a flash flood warning, according to an alert from the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency (HCCDA).
Due to the slowing of the hurricane, dangerous heavy rains and flooding may persist on the windward side of the Big Island, HCCDA says.
The University of Oregon football team tweeted Friday that it will collect canned food and supplies for Hawaii as Hurricane Lane nears the state.
All summer long, a stream of frequent volcanic eruptions and thousands of earthquakes have hit Hawaii’s Big Island.
But so far, Hurricane Lane hasn’t had much of an impact on the volcanoes, the United States Geological Survey reports.
Here’s why that is: The eruptive activity of Kilauea has “paused,” with no new lava flows since August 9, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Since there is not much lava reaching the ocean anymore, the hurricane shouldn’t have too much of an impact on the volcano region, according to Denison University Geophysicist Erik Klemetti.
Hurricane Lane has weakened into a Category 2 storm, according to the most recent advisory from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
It’s expected to weaken further as it travels northward, and it should become a tropical storm after it turns west.
Lane was a Category 5 storm late Tuesday before weakening to a Category 4 Wednesday morning. It dropped to a Category 3 storm overnight Thursday.
This was only the second time in recorded history that a Category 5 hurricane came within 350 miles of Hawaii — the first one being Hurricane John in 1994 — the National Weather Service said.
As Hawaii braces for Hurricane Lane, Maui’s resort area of Lahaina is also fighting a brush fire that began overnight.
The fire has prompted evacuations and closed roads, although there are currently no reports of any injuries. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.
Several Hawaiian residents and vistors shared photos of the fire:
An overnight brush fire has closed roadways and prompted evacuations near Maui’s resort area of Lahaina, according to a Maui County emergency alert.
Maui County emergency personnel responded to reports of a brush fire near Lahaina’s Kauaula Valley about 1:00 a.m., according to the alert. The fire, which is estimated to be 3 to 4 acres in size has begun to spread and residents in the area are being evacuated, the alert says.
A nearby storm shelter has also been moved from the Lahaina Intermediate School to the Lahaina Civic Center, the county notes.
There are no reports of injuries at this time. The cause of the fire is unknown.
Cell phone service in the area is said to be sporadic due to the storm, and the county says that customers may be unable to make or receive phone calls into or out of the Lahaina area at this time.
Here’s what the fire looks like:
Hurricane Lane is making its way northward now, but we’re expecting it to eventually turn west, likely avoiding landfall on the Hawaiian Islands.
Here’s a day-by-day look at what to expect:
