Hurricane douglas has reached the hawaii islands in the pacific ocean.
According to the US national hurricane center, the eye of the hurricane was 105 kilometers east-northeast of honolulu, the capital of the US state of hawaii, on sunday evening (local time, monday morning CEST). With wind speeds of 140 kilometers per hour, the storm slowly moved on in a west-northwest direction.
No major damage has yet been reported. Authorities had warned of life-threatening and potentially destructive waves, heavy rainfall and dangerous storm surges. On the island of maui, people have been urged to seek shelter at home and avoid roads as much as possible. Hawaii is rarely hit by hurricanes.
The tropical storms are named in alphabetical order, with separate tables for the atlantic and the pacific each year. "Douglas" is the fourth storm to hit the pacific this year.
On the atlantic side of the american continent, storm "hanna" made landfall in the u.S. State of texas on saturday. It was the first atlantic storm of the season to reach hurricane strength. On sunday evening (local time), it had weakened over northeastern mexico to a tropical depression with winds of only 45 kilometers per hour. The weather service continued to warn of heavy rain and flooding.
"Hanna" had brought heavy rainfall with it. CNN reported that more than 250,000 homes in southern texas lost power as a result of the storm. Governor greg abbott had declared a state of emergency for numerous counties in texas. The corona pandemic there is complicating the work of relief workers in the storm, abbott said, according to U.S. Media.
NOAA expected an above-average hurricane season over the atlantic this year according to a may forecast. From june to the end of november, up to ten hurricanes could be expected, of which up to six could become very strong hurricanes, the authorities had explained. On average, there are six hurricanes a year over the atlantic, three of which develop into storms of major intensity.