CPHC Watches Potential Tropical Cyclone

The National Weather Service’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center is keeping an eye on a low pressure system that has the potential to become the first tropical system of the season to impact Hawai’i.

CPHC says that the low pressure system is approximately 1,450 miles east-southeast of Hilo.

In a tropical weather outlook released at 2 p.m. Monday, CPHC forecasts that environmental conditions are expected to remain conducive for development and a tropical depression will likely form during the next 48 hours. At the time of the release, the system was moving in a west-northwest direction and traveling at about 15 to 20 miles per hour.

The low pressure system’s chances of forming into a tropical cyclone are “high” at about 70 percent.

Two additional systems are also in the area. A nearly stationary weak surface low is about 650 miles to the south-southeast of Hilo. The system is disorganized and has very little chance of organizing into a tropical cyclone in the next 48 hours.

Another storm system, described as a broad low pressure area about 1,000 miles to the south-southwest of Honolulu, is carrying thunderstorms, but like the weak surface low, is a poorly organized system and holds a low chance of becoming a tropical cyclone.