Hurricane Nolo reached Category 3 strength Saturday in the remote Pacific, and a tropical storm warning now covers part of the federally protected Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. The National Hurricane Center reported maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph). Officials forecast no threat to populated islands, but warned that surf could inundate low-lying atolls.
Who the Warning Covers
The warning applies from Maro Reef to Lisianski Island, within a large, remote protected area containing islands, atolls, seamounts, shoals and coral reefs. The National Hurricane Center said Nolo’s large surf “will likely inundate some of the low-lying atolls.” That’s the immediate risk in the forecast: water overtopping low ground in a place where no populated islands are expected to face a threat.
Nolo was about 210 miles (335 kilometers) south-southwest of Maro Reef and moving westward at 17 mph (28 kph). The warning marks a boundary on an official map, while the expected effects reach the low-lying terrain inside it. The report gives no estimate of how many atolls could be inundated. It names no local response, evacuation order or community organization. It records the warning and forecast, not what people on the ground may be doing.
The Forecast, and Its Limits
The National Hurricane Center is the named source for Nolo’s position, strength and movement. Its report puts the storm well west of Hawaii’s main islands and says Nolo was expected to cross the international date line Sunday. That forecast describes where the storm is headed; it doesn’t say populated islands are in its path.
The hurricane’s strength has shifted. Nolo skirted Hawaii as a hurricane a week earlier, weakened into a tropical storm and regained hurricane strength Friday before reaching Category 3 on Saturday. The supplied report gives no explanation for those changes, so the account sticks to the measured wind speed and the storm’s recorded track. There’s no legislative debate or electoral remedy in the report, and no claim that an institutional intervention can prevent the surf from reaching the atolls.
Another Storm in the Pacific
Nolo isn’t the only hurricane in the report. Category 1 Hurricane Rachel continued westward on a path away from Mexico’s west coast. The hurricane center forecast dangerous swells through the weekend along west-central Mexico and through Monday for the Baja California Peninsula.
Those warnings place different stretches of the Pacific under official forecast. Nolo’s specific threat concerns low-lying atolls in a remote federally protected area. The report offers no figures for damage, no account of mutual aid or direct action, and no description of services delivered by nonprofits. It also doesn’t identify any populated island as threatened by Nolo. What it states plainly is the storm’s scale, the route officials expect it to take and the possibility that surf will cover some low-lying atolls.