Hurricane Dora to become the second Tropical Cyclone to ever reach/maintain hurricane strength across three Pacific Basins
HURRICANE DORA 2023 - Starting back on Monday, July 31, 2023, the National Hurricane Center issued the first official product for Tropical Depression Five-E around 4 PM CDT in the eastern Pacific. The Tropical Depression would quickly strengthen, becoming Tropical Storm Dora by 10 AM CDT Tuesday, August 1, 2023, and Hurricane Dora by 2 PM CDT Wednesday, August 2, 2023.
Hurricane Dora became a Major Hurricane between Wednesday, August 2, and Thursday, August 3, when the storm strengthened from 95 knots sustained to 110 knots sustained, with a Major Hurricane being defined as a tropical cyclone with sustained winds over 96 knots or 111 mph. When compared to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, these are storms that are classified as categories 3, 4, and 5 storms.
While Hurricane Dora hasn't had any direct impacts to land throughout its lifecycle, it has had indirect impacts on the winds for the Hawaiian Islands and resulted in the deadliest natural disaster in history for the Islands despite Dora being over 700 miles to the south. The interaction between the Hurricane and an area of High Pressure to the north of the Islands caused the pressure gradient over the Hawaiian Islands to tighten. The tightened pressure gradient caused strong winds to develop over the Islands, with the National Weather Service in Honolulu, Hawaii reporting peak wind gusts exceeding 80 mph at times. While the source of the wildfires on Maui isn't yet known, the extreme winds helped to quickly push the wildfire out of control destroying the city of Lahaina and killing an estimated 55 people so far.
As Hurricane Dora continues to work off to the west-northwest, it will track from the central Pacific to the western Pacific later this afternoon where it will officially make the transition from Hurricane to Typhoon. Once this occurs, Dora will become the second tropical cyclone to ever reach/maintain hurricane strength in the eastern, central, and western Pacific. Hurricane strength is defined as a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 74 mph (64 knots). According to the National Hurricane Center, the only other tropical cyclone known to do this was Hurricane John in 1994. Ironically, Hurricane Dora from 1999 almost accomplished this, but weakened to a tropical storm as it crossed the International Date Line (division between central Pacific and west Pacific). Hurricane Dora has tracked over 4,000 miles so far.
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