Editor’s note: The Earth Observatory no longer supports the ‘Ask
a Scientist’ feature. These pages provide an archive of previous
questions and answers. Q: At one time, meterologists never
predicted that hurricanes hit Hawaii, only storms. Is the
hurricane season that Hawaii experiences a change in the weather
patterns or is it simply that the weather is announced
differently? Aloha..... A: Dear Valerie, We consulted with staff
at the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Honolulu, who
are in the best position to know the "official" policy over the
years. They pointed out that Hawaii has taken 4 direct/almost
direct hits by hurricanes in the last 50 years -- Nina in 1957,
Dot in 1959, Iwa in 1982, and Iniki in 1992 -- and all were
correctly identified in newspaper reports at the time as
hurricanes. Furthermore, their personal experience reaching back
into the 1980s is that the terms Tropical Depression, Tropical
Storm, and Hurricane have been used in forecasts, both by the
NWS and the media. It is possible