As happened two months ago with Hurricane Iselle, Ana appears to be headed directly for the Big Island of Hawaii. Prior to Iselle’s recent assault on the Big Island it was generally observed that Hurricanes kept their distance from the Big Island. There have been many examples of Pacific hurricanes that initially had their direction set for the Big Island only to swerve off for a miss or simply whimper out to become a tropical depression. It was thought by many that the twin mountains of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa were too high for a hurricane to sustain its cyclical motion and hence chose the path of least resistance and veered away from these formidable obstacles. Iselle severely altered that theory when not only did it not swerve but it plowed directly into Hilo and formed a b-line directly over the island in a path right between the two mountains. To be certain the island caused the hurricane to lose its form and weaken but it did not deter the storm from making a frontal assault.
Now only two month later Hurricane Ana is once again bearing down with its sites at this point set on hitting or possibly passing just over the southern tip of the Big Island and possibly working its way up the island chain with the most powerful ‘forward right’ quadrant strafing the islands. At this point because hurricanes are so unpredictable anything could happen but at least based upon the few hurricanes that have either hit or narrowly missed the islands of Hawaii this season it appears that the southernmost island, the Big Island, has been the island in the sites of mother nature and not its most frequent target in years past, being the island of Kauai.
The next 72 hours will tell the rest of the story but the planet certainly seems to be full of fury at this moment in time as scores of tornado like disturbances are marching their way like an army from the Mississippi River toward the Carolina’s, Hurricane Gonzolo is poised to contact Bermuda and Super Typhoon Vongfong which was the most powerful storm on the planet this year just slammed two days ago into Japan.