Hurricane Flossie has been downgraded to a tropical storm after brushing past Hawaii's coastline yesterday.
Despite concerns about flooding and wind damage, the storm brought little more than roiling waves and steady rain as its eye moved about 95 miles (153 kilometers) south of South Point on Hawaii's Big Island—the closest to approach the islands in 15 years (Hawaii map).
Winds had dropped to 60 miles (96 kilometers) an hour by 8 a.m. eastern this morning, and the storm is expected to continue weakening.
But the close call was more than just a lucky miss, storm experts say. In general, the Hawaiian Islands are hit by surprisingly few hurricanes.
"We have had three direct or near-direct hits" since 1950, said Raymond Tanabe of NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu. The hurricanes Dot, Iwa, and Iniki hit the island of Kauai in 1959, 1982, and 1992, respectively.
In part, Tanabe said, the islands have been spared because they're a "small target" in the middle of a large ocean.
In addition, the central Pacific is comprised of deep ocean water that tends to be relatively cool by tropical standards.
Because hurricanes feed on energy from warm waters, central Pacific storms are less intense on average compared to those in the Atlantic.
Spinning Top
But other factors are also at work.
Hurricanes are to a large extent pushed eastward by the trade winds. But their counterclockwise rotation produces southward winds on their leading edge.
The interaction of these winds makes the hurricane tend to roll to the right, Tanabe said, like a spinning top brushing against a wall.
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