Fausto is a hurricane spinning in the open waters of the Eastern Pacific and may graze past Hawaii next week.
Here’s what to know about how the storm is shaping up.
Fausto is a hurricane.
On Friday morning, satellite imagery showed a classic pinwheel cloud pattern spinning halfway between Mexico and Hawaii, with an eye — the clear air in the center — visible at times.
Expert forecasters at the National Hurricane Center commented on the fairly symmetrical cloud pattern.
The storm, which is moving west, is likely to fluctuate in intensity over the next few days.
Fausto’s exact path is still shaping up.
The storm was moving west at 14 miles per hour on Friday morning, and on this trajectory and pace, Fausto could reach Hawaii by the middle of next week. Most forecast models show a near miss north of the islands, and some show the path going even farther north. A more northern path would mean fewer effects on the islands.
But some forecast models do bring Fausto very close to the islands’ northern edge. On Friday morning, the official forecast track from the National Hurricane Center — where meteorologists take in all the models and apply their expertise to decide which is the most likely — leaned toward a path that would most likely bring some storm effects, including heavy rain and strong winds, to the islands.
Fausto’s impacts on Hawaii are still uncertain.
On Friday, forecasters also noted that the hurricane seemed slightly smaller than average for this part of the world. A smaller storm is less likely to directly impact Hawaii, which is already a very small target in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean.
Either way, some tracks bring the storm close enough to cause heavy rain — especially along the eastern slopes of the mountains — as well as high swells and potentially tropical-storm-force winds.
As it approaches the islands, the storm is forecast to weaken in intensity. Typically, storms moving from the east toward Hawaii weaken over cooler waters. Although ocean temperatures are warmer than average right now, which can often help hurricanes grow more intense, atmospheric conditions above those waters still suggest to forecasters that the system will weaken.
A more northerly path would cause the storm to weaken faster, creating at least some possibility that Fausto dissipates before reaching the islands.
Forecasters said that in the coming days, they would have a clearer picture of how much rain could fall on Hawaii and whether any areas would experience those stronger winds.
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