Puna Weather
Saturday 29th August 2026
Today through Thursday a bit humid with light to moderate easterly trade winds and scattered showers.
Tropical Storm Lowell is still under easterly shear with the main convective activity located to the west of the low level center. Recently the low level center appears to have shifted more than a hundred miles west and under the persistent convection. Looking at water vapor imagery good outflow can be see on the west side of the storm, but not on the east side, so while it looks like the storm is beginning to become vertically aligned, this is likely premature. The GFS and all high resolution models indicate less shear over Lowell beginning late Sunday. These models show Lowell responding to the lower shear by strengthening into a powerful hurricane. As such they show the storm being steered by mid/upper level flow instead of lower level flow, turning the storm towards the northwest due to lighter steering winds and stronger beta drift (stronger storms have a northward tendency).
Therefore we see two camps... on one hand there's the NHC, ECMWF and Google Deepmind showing a weaker storm and a more southerly track. The high resolution models could be over strengthening the storm, but they turn the storm towards us. None of the models show center of Karina getting closer than 1,100 miles from the center of Lowell, so they won't have a chance to experience the fujiwara effect, but Karina can weaken the ridge to the north of Lowell, also possibly helping Lowell to take a more northerly track.
This is all too complex to forecast and is likely to remain so for a few days. The bottom line is that Lowell poses a significant threat to any island along its path with high winds and torrential rains. Hopefully it stays south.
Since we're still watching Karina, it recently developed an impressive central dense overcast indicating vertical alignment and this could be the beginning of a period of rapid intensification. Karina's path is unknown and there is a small chance that the storm could eventually make it's way towards us. Hopefully it stays north.
