First Hawaii Hurricane, Genevieve a Typhoon!

Breaking tropical weather news today is as active as it was Tuesday. Here's a look at today's (water vapor) satellite image, showing Typhoon Halong, Typhoon Genevieve, Hurricane Iselle, Hurricane Julio, and two other areas that may form tropical cyclones. Tropical Storm Bertha is not shown, making for a total of six storms (and two potential storms) that we're monitoring.

In the news meeting this morning at AccuWeather, this was stated: "If Hurricane Iselle hits the big island as a hurricane, it will be the first in recorded history (since 1950)!"

Apparently previous storms typically came up from the south, or missed the big island to the north or south. We even have a video about the Hawaii Hurricane, en Español. This map shows Iselle at 3 PM ET today, with model winds and temperatures overlaid:

Meanwhile, Genevieve, which we thought was dead, intensified into a Category 4 hurricane suddenly last night, then crossed the International Date Line, further strengthened and was classified as a super typhoon a few hours later. This is something that has only happened to one other storm since 1950! The next storm's records to beat is Hurricane/Typhoon John from 1994, which had the longest track (time and mileage) and set the highest wind speed in the Central Pacific basin.

Typhoon Halong is still headed towards Japan... and Bertha? She's headed to the United Kingdom.