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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) – Hurricane “Douglas” has reached the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific. According to a statement from the National Hurricane Center of the United States, the eye of the cyclone on Sunday evening (local time, Monday morning CEST) was 105 kilometers east-northeast of Honolulu, the capital of the US state of Hawaii. With wind speeds of 140 kilometers per hour, the storm slowly moved in a west-northwest direction.
At first nothing was known about major damage. The authorities had warned of life-threatening and potentially destructive waves, heavy rainfalls and dangerous storm surges. On the island of Maui, people were asked to take shelter at home and avoid streets as much as possible. Hawaii is rarely hit by hurricanes.
The tropical currents are named in alphabetical order; there are separate tables for the Atlantic and the Pacific each year. “Douglas” is the fourth storm this year in the Pacific.
On the Atlantic side of the American continent, the storm “Hanna” hit land in the US state of Texas on Saturday. It was the first Atlantic storm of the season to reach hurricane strength. On Sunday evening (local time) it had weakened to a tropical low above the northeast of Mexico with wind speeds of only 45 kilometers per hour. The weather service continued to warn of heavy rain and flooding.
“Hanna” had brought heavy rainfalls with it. The broadcaster CNN reported that in the south of Texas, the storm cut power in more than 250,000 households. Governor Greg Abbott had declared a state of emergency for numerous counties in Texas. The raging corona pandemic is complicating the work of the relief workers during the storm, Abbott said, according to US media.
According to a forecast from May, NOAA expected an above-average active hurricane season above the Atlantic this year. From June to the end of November, up to ten hurricanes can be expected, of which up to six could be very strong eddy currents, the authority had declared. There are an average of six hurricanes per year across the Atlantic, three of which are developing into strong currents
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