July 16, 2026 Hawaii weather and surf: Keeping an eye on hurricane swells; Jen Robbins

[00:00:00]New major first alerts as we take a look at the tropics right now. We do have more activity. No major threats to Hawaii, but surf could be coming our way. Tropical Storm Alita is now churning over the Eastern Pacific. It's a tropical storm status at 65 mph, but it's on its way of becoming a hurricane.

[00:00:19]And if you notice the track, it's taking a north track moving west first and then towards the north. And that's when it's going to be moving into cooler waters.

[00:00:27]But at some point it's going to see winds of about 80 to 85 mph becoming a category 1 hurricane. That could potentially bring a hurricane swell our way. More activity behind this as things heat up over the Eastern Pacific. And you could see that belt of very warm sea surface temperatures. And our weather models show more activity behind Alita.

[00:00:50]You could actually see another system that will be making its way across the Pacific by the time we get into Wednesday of next week. And at one point likely a hurricane and then fizzles out again. And then more activity even behind that. So a train of tropical cyclones starting to develop next week.

[00:01:09]And just a friendly reminder, the peak of hurricane season is usually August to September, but because it's a strengthening El Nino year, that could actually extend into probably past November and past strong El Nino years, we've seen storms easily into December and even January. So something we'll have to watch as we will be seeing very warm sea surface temperatures. Hurricane swells could be coming our way, but then we're talking about a typhoon swell.

[00:01:37]Remember over the Western Pacific, we had a super typhoon. Now we're seeing that energy come our way on west-facing shores at 2 to 4 and 3 to 5 on town side. Much smaller in the country and 2 to 4 on east-facing shores. A beautiful night. Look up in the sky, we have a sliver of a moon. We also have a few windward and mauka showers. See Waimea will be seeing a few showers later tonight. And taking a closer look at the big picture, more showers will be coming in. But wow, what a beautiful day it was. Some fair weather cumulus clouds, but at times some showers came through making for some rainbow weather that moved across the island chain for your Aloha Friday. Gusts up to 25 mph on Kauai. Hanalei about 73, we'll get to 84. A gorgeous day, but a warm one. And we will be facing the heat by late morning. So really feeling very warm afternoon highs over Maui County.

[00:02:32]Flirting with the 90s in some spots like Kihei 88 degrees. And West Hawaii, a gorgeous day, a few pop-up showers mauka, but take a look at how warm it's going to be as we spin over the other side. Hilo is facing some showers tonight. We could have a few showers lingering tomorrow. And beautiful North Hawaii, we're talking about a few showers, breezy at times with gusts up to about 25 mph. And 64° in Waimea, we'll get to 79 by the afternoon.

[00:03:00]Walking through the next 7 days, we'll have partly sunny conditions, a mix of sun and clouds, gorgeous weather. And it's pretty typical for this time of year. And we're going to be on cruise control into the weekend and into next week. A boost in the trade winds Wednesday into Thursday.

[00:03:16]>> All righty, thank you so much, Jen. More than 100 Lahaina residents