Hurricane Lane, now a Category 5 storm, is heading toward Hawaii

Hurricane Lane approaches Hawaii
(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter/NOAA Satellite)

The National Weather Service announced Tuesday night that Hurricane Lane, an erratic storm currently about 500 miles southeast of Honolulu, had strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 160 miles per hour. Hawaii's Big Island is under a hurricane warning and most of the other Hawaiian islands are under hurricane watch. "On the forecast track, the center of Lane will move very close to or over the main Hawaiian Islands from Thursday through Saturday," potentially bringing devastating winds and life-threatening flash floods, the weather service said, but "it is much too early to confidently determine which, if any, of the main Hawaiian islands will be directly impacted by Lane."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.