Will a hurricane make landfall in Hawaii during the 2026 hurricane season? — Before 2027

- [2026-09-24] Tropical Storm Nolo is centered ~300 miles south of the Big Island moving toward it; the system is expected to approach the Big Island of Hawaii on Friday and Saturday, and Nolo is forecast to become a hurricane on Thursday and could become a major hurricane by the weekend. Source: NHC public advisory. - [2026-09-24] Rapid intensification is possible, and Nolo is forecast to become a hurricane by Thursday night and reach major hurricane strength on Saturday as it passes south of the Big Island. Source: NHC forecast/discussion. - [2026-09-24] Tropical Storm Nolo has strengthened slightly on a track that will bring it close to Hawaii Island Friday into Saturday, and a Hurricane Watch has been issued for Hawaii County, meaning hurricane conditions are possible within the next 48 hours. Source: Hawaii News Now. - [2026-09-24] Hurricane conditions with winds of 74 miles per hour or stronger are possible on Hawaii Island. Source: Hawaii News Now. - [2026-09-24] Latest NHC track data shows Nolo's projected trajectory: INIT 24/0300Z 14.7N 155.9W 40 KT 45 MPH ... 36H 25/1200Z 16.2N 155.3W 70 KT 80 MPH ... 48H 26/0000Z 17.1N 155.0W 80 KT 90 MPH ... 60H 26/1200Z 17.5N 155.1W 90 KT 105 MPH. This places projected hurricane-strength winds near/passing the Big Island around Sept 26. - [2026-09-24] Weather.com notes the exact track remains uncertain: Tropical Storm Nolo is centered just under 300 miles south of the Big Island and is beginning to turn north. A recent model run pulled the track farther south of the island, potentially keeping the center offshore even if impacts (rain, wind, surge) still reach the islands. - [2026-09-24] Historical context: Only one other major (Category 3 or stronger) hurricane has tracked within 150 miles of the Big Island, according to NOAA's hurricane database — August 1959's Hurricane Dot, which brushed south of the Big Island before making landfall on Kauai, meaning Nolo could be the strongest Big Island approach in 67 years, but a close pass is not the same as a landfall. - [2026-08-13 to 2026-09-23] Earlier in the season, Hurricane Lala (mid-August) grazed the Big Island: a hurricane watch was in effect for the Big Island as Hurricane Lala lashed it with heavy rain and wind, and while Lala never made landfall, its eyewall came ashore on the island's southern tip, dropping more than 40 inches of rain. - [2026-09-08] Hurricane Lowell also passed near Hawaii without landfall: Hurricane Lowell passed just to the west of Kauai , and per Wikipedia, Lowell reached Category 5 strength as the season's strongest storm but weakened before its closest approach. - [2026-09-24] NOAA's seasonal outlook (issued pre-season) forecast an active year: NOAA's outlook for the 2026 hurricane season predicted a 70% chance of an above-normal season, forecasting a total of 5-13 tropical cyclones across the central Pacific , driven by El Niño conditions; the outlook itself is not a landfall forecast. - [2026-09-24] Local Honolulu media frame this as an unprecedented year: for the third time this hurricane season a hurricane watch has been issued for a portion of the Hawaiian islands, and the 2026 hurricane season for Hawaii can be comparable to the 2004 hurricane season for Florida when the state was impacted by four hurricanes. - [2026-09-24] No hurricane has made landfall in Hawaii so far this season as of this writing — Lala, Moke, and Lowell all stayed offshore with only glancing/eyewall impacts, and Nolo is still ~24-48 hours from its closest approach with landfall status undetermined. BOTTOM LINE: As of September 24, 2026, no hurricane has yet made landfall in Hawaii this season, but Tropical Storm Nolo is forecast to become a major hurricane and make its closest approach to the Big Island around September 26-27, with NHC's own guidance flagging a real, non-trivial chance of a direct hit — the closest call of an already unusually active season (three prior watches, none resulting in landfall). NOT FOUND: No confirmed landfall as of the last available advisory; could not find a post-event NHC final report on whether Nolo (or any 2026 storm) ultimately made landfall, since Nolo's closest approach was still 1-3 days in the future relative to the most recent data retrieved.

- [2026-09-20] Historical base rate: since formal record-keeping began in 1949, only one hurricane (Iniki, 1992) has made a widely-recognized direct landfall on a major Hawaiian island as a hurricane-intensity system, and a tropical cyclone of tropical storm intensity or higher making landfall on one of the major islands in the state of Hawaii since record keeping began in 1949 has happened only about six times total (mostly at tropical-storm strength, not hurricane strength). - [2025-09-05] Climatology commentary: in the historical record from 1949 to 2025, such an event has happened only once, with Hurricane Iniki in 1992, giving roughly a 1.3% annual climatological probability for a major hurricane strike; a plain hurricane-strength (Cat 1+) landfall is a higher-probability but still rare event historically. - [1992-09-11] The last unambiguous hurricane landfall: Hurricane Iniki made landfall on September 11, 1992, as a powerful Category 4 storm with sustained winds over 140 mph, striking the south-central coast of Kaua'i . - [2026-05-21] NOAA's official seasonal outlook raised the base rate for this specific season: NOAA's outlook for the 2026 hurricane season predicts a 70% chance of an above-normal season, a 20% chance of a near-normal season, and a 10% chance of a below-normal season, forecasting 5-13 tropical cyclones across the central Pacific , driven by El Niño. - [2026-08-18] Hurricane Lala approached the Big Island but per NWS: the possibility the island could witness its first direct hit from a hurricane in 155 years faded as the eye of the storm passed the island's southern tip, with landfall not expected, according to NWS meteorologist Joseph Clark . - [2026-08-17] CBS News confirmed after Lala's passage that a hurricane hasn't made direct landfall in the state since Iniki in 1992 , treating Lala as a near-miss rather than landfall. - [2026-09-08] Hurricane Lowell, the season's other major threat, also did not make a clean landfall: the Hawaiian Islands rarely see significant hurricane damage, but they just experienced the effects of their second hurricane in a year as Hurricane Lowell's eyewall brushed Niihau, west of Kauai, on Sept. 8, 2026 , a "brush" rather than a center-crossing landfall. - [2026-09-04] Even with an unusually active season, the geography kept storms mostly offshore: what typically protects Hawaii from major hurricanes is cooler sea surface temperatures , a persistent structural factor even in El Niño years. - [2026-09-20] Prediction markets reflect the ambiguity/rarity: the Kalshi/Polymarket "hurricane landfall in Hawaii before 2027" contract was trading around 11-16% (average ~13%) despite two hurricanes (Lala, Lowell) having closely approached, because both are widely characterized as near-misses rather than confirmed landfalls; one analysis noted the price moved from a low of 6% up to a peak near 24-26% during each storm's close approach before settling back down as each system passed without official landfall. - [2026-09-23] Market commentary described the resolution question as genuinely disputed: The Atlantic reported that "Hawaii, which is seldom hit, has been struck by two hurricanes so far this year," which, if it reflects official meteorological records, should resolve the contract at 100% , but sourced NHC advisories for both storms describe center passages offshore, not a technical landfall. - [2026-09-23] Analysts flagged that resolution depends on NHC's official post-season best-track determination: if the market's resolution source requires something The Atlantic's newsletter did not verify, then the price reflects resolution risk and time-value discounting rather than the true probability . BOTTOM LINE: The unconditional base rate for an actual hurricane-force (74+ mph) center-crossing landfall in Hawaii is very low (roughly one clear case in ~75 years, Iniki 1992), but the 2026 season has already produced two extraordinarily close calls (Lala, Lowell) under an NOAA-forecast above-normal/El Niño season, pushing the empirical/market-implied probability well above the pure historical base rate even though neither has been confirmed as an official landfall. NOT FOUND: No official NHC/CPHC post-season best-track report yet confirming or denying a "landfall" classification for Lala or Lowell; could not find the exact current Kalshi order-book price (page loaded with no live quote) or a definitive statement from Kalshi on how it defines "landfall" for this specific contract.

- [2026-09-23] AccuWeather's lead hurricane expert flagged an explicit landfall contingency that goes beyond "close pass": "A hurricane watch has been issued for all of the Big Island. The Big Island is predicted to experience the worst of the storm, with the center of Nolo tracking just to the south. If the storm ends up tracking farther north, it could make landfall." This is the single most direct YES mechanism identified by any outlet: a modest (tens-of-miles) northward track error converts a "close pass" into an actual landfall. https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/tropical-storm-nolo-to-become-major-hurricane-slam-hawaii-with-potentially-historic-multi-day-deluge/1937455 - [2026-09-23] The Washington Post's tracker used stronger landfall-implying language than most outlets, describing the storm's path as one that "will pass over Hawaii's largest island before shifting westward back into the Pacific," and that "it is expected to rapidly strengthen into a Category 3 hurricane early Saturday just as it reaches the island." This "pass over" framing is more landfall-consistent than the NHC's own "approach" language. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026/09/23/tropical-storm-nolo-tracker-map-projected-storm-path/ - [2026-09-24] Zoom Earth's model-consensus tracker notes the guidance has been shifting toward, not away from, the island: "Similar to the last cycle, the bulk of the models have shifted slightly northward, and the new NHC forecast is moved in that direction." A continued northward trend over the next 24-48 hours is the near-term signal to watch for landfall risk. https://zoom.earth/storms/nolo-2026/ - [2026-09-24] The NHC's own 5 PM HST Sept 23 forecast discussion explicitly frames the intensity forecast as running hot relative to guidance: "The latest NHC intensity forecast hovers near the upper end of the guidance envelope throughout the forecast period... These conditions could support rapid intensification, and Nolo is forecast to become a hurricane by Thursday night and reach major hurricane strength on Saturday as it passes south of the Big Island." A Category 3 core passing "south of" the island with a compact wind field still leaves nontrivial odds that hurricane-force winds (the resolution threshold, not the eye) reach shore even without a clean center-crossing. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/mobile/text/refresh/HFOTCDCP2+html/160854.shtml - [2026-09-24] Zoom Earth also flags a terrain-interaction wildcard that could pull the track toward land: "This remains a more uncertain forecast than normal given the large unresolved north-south spread, with other possible complicating terrain influences of the Big Island (like we saw with Hurricane Lala last month)." Mauna Kea/Mauna Loa's mass has previously distorted storm tracks and intensity near the Big Island, adding a physical mechanism (not just model noise) that could pull Nolo's circulation onshore. https://zoom.earth/storms/nolo-2026/ - [2026-09-24] Hawaii Governor Josh Green's own damage accounting underscores how active and consequential this season already is, independent of technical landfall status: "The state has been hit by four big events this year: the Kona Low storms in March, the Hawai'i Island earthquake in May, and Hurricanes Lala and Lowell this summer... those four major disasters have left about $686 million in damages." This signals sustained, compounding exposure — a fifth major system (Nolo) landing directly would be a continuation of an already-unprecedented pattern rather than an outlier. https://abcnews.com/US/hard-hit-hawaii-hurricane-watch-nolo-nears-big/story?id=136715516 - [2026-09-24] Even sources leaning toward a "near miss" outcome concede genuine uncertainty rather than near-certainty of an offshore pass: "It's unclear if Nolo will make landfall on the Big Island, but it will come close enough to cause major impacts," and Hurricane Warnings (not just Watches) are already posted for waters just 40 nautical miles offshore, indicating official forecasters see the storm's core passing extremely close to shore. https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/weather/2026/09/23/tracking-nolo - [2026-09-24] The storm's NHC forecast track (as reported in prior team research) keeps Nolo at major-hurricane intensity (90-115 mph) for over 72 hours while transiting the Hawaiian island chain's longitudes, meaning even if the Big Island is spared, the storm remains at landfall-capable strength as it passes the latitudes/longitudes of Maui, Oahu, and Kauai over the following days — extending the landfall window beyond just Sept 26-27 at the Big Island alone. - [2026-09-24] Local emergency management language reflects genuine alarm rather than routine caution: "Residents and visitors should take this threat very seriously," the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said... Torrential rain on the Big Island and Maui are "creating the potential for life-threatening flooding and landslides." https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2026/09/24/340335.htm - [2026-09-24] Historical base rates undercount how close 2026 has already come: the same wire report notes "Hawaii has been menaced by at least five tropical systems so far, including Hurricane Lowell that sparked warnings on Oahu and Kauai earlier this month, and Lala that came within miles of making landfall on the Big Island in August." Three consecutive near-misses (Lala, Lowell, and now Nolo) in one season is statistically extraordinary and suggests the atmospheric/oceanic setup (El Niño-driven warm SSTs) is unusually conducive to storms reaching the islands at hurricane strength, raising the odds that the next approach (or a subsequent one before Jan 1) finally crosses the coast. https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2026/09/24/340335.htm BOTTOM LINE: The strongest YES path is Nolo itself: NHC and AccuWeather both explicitly acknowledge that a modest northward track shift — well within the current forecast cone/uncertainty — would turn Saturday's projected "close pass" south of the Big Island into an actual major-hurricane landfall, and models have been trending northward, not southward, in the most recent runs (Sept 24). Beyond Nolo, an unprecedented three-storm sequence of near-misses in one El Niño-charged season, plus additional major-hurricane-strength time spent transiting the island chain's longitudes over the following days, means multiple opportunities for landfall remain even if the Big Island itself is spared this weekend. NOT FOUND: No confirmed landfall as of the last update (Sept 24 morning); no official NHC post-storm best-track determination for Nolo (still 48+ hours from closest approach); no explicit Kalshi/market rules clarifying whether a "brush" or eyewall-onshore event (as with Lala) would count as landfall for resolution purposes.

- [2026-09-24] Weather.com's midday update reports a track shift working against landfall: the latest run of models has actually pulled the track of Nolo farther south and the Big Island is now not in the cone of uncertainty, and should this trend continue, more of the heaviest impacts could stay offshore. https://weather.com/2026/09/24/storms/hurricane/hawaii-hurricane-nolo-flooding-wind-forecast - [2026-09-24] Even the outlet's own framing concedes uncertainty about whether a landfall will ever occur regardless of impacts felt: even if the Big Island stays outside of the cone of uncertainty, impacts will still occur well beyond the cone... at least parts of the main islands will see the triple threat of rain, winds and waves, and this will happen regardless of how close Nolo's center tracks to the Big Island and whether or not it ever makes a landfall. https://weather.com/2026/09/24/storms/hurricane/hawaii-hurricane-nolo-flooding-wind-forecast - [2026-08-18] The NHC/NWS glossary's rigid technical definition is the actual resolution bar, not felt impacts: landfall is the intersection of the surface center of a tropical cyclone with a coastline; because the strongest winds in a tropical cyclone are not located precisely at the center, it is possible for a cyclone's strongest winds to be experienced over land even if landfall does not occur. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutgloss.shtml - [2026-08-18] Weather.com's own explainer, published right after Lala's near-miss, states plainly that near-misses do not count in the "record books": this is why storms that clearly impact a coastline sometimes never get credited with a landfall — if the center stays just offshore, while the destructive side of the storm sweeps the shore, there's still no landfall in the record books, and this is exactly what happened with Lala; the storm brushed the Big Island, but never made landfall — if it had, it would have been the Big Island's first hurricane landfall in modern records. https://weather.com/2026/08/18/science/weather-explainers/hurricane-landfall-meaning-direct-hit-strike-explained - [2026-09-24] A dedicated Hawaii-travel tracker cataloguing every 2026 system explicitly labels both prior close calls as non-landfalls in its running record: 2026 — Hurricane Lala (preliminary): Lala's center remained offshore while the storm produced consequential impacts across the main Hawaiian Islands; 2026 — Hurricane Lowell (preliminary): Lowell's center remained offshore west of the main Hawaiian Islands. It also cites a 2024 precedent (Hone) with the same outcome pattern: 2024 — Hurricane Hone: Hone strengthened into a hurricane while passing about 45 nautical miles south of South Point... the NOAA post-storm report documents tropical-storm-force winds and heavy rain on the Big Island even though the center never crossed land. https://www.hawaii-guide.com/blog/hurricane-season-in-hawaii - [2026-09-17] A geography-based mechanism explains why this pattern of "approach but no crossing" keeps repeating even in an active El Niño year: storms from the east must fight the normal "shield" of cooler ocean temperatures located to the east of the islands , and the piece notes that of the four historical storms sharing Nolo's south-then-turn-north track type (Dot, Iniki, Lane, Lowell), Dot and Iniki made landfall on Kaua'i, one of the western islands — never the Big Island — while Lane and Lowell did not make landfall anywhere. https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/09/why-hawaiis-hurricane-force-field-seems-to-be-down/ - [2026-09-08] The same mechanism (Hawaiian High / subtropical ridge) is corroborated independently: in the eastern and central Pacific, the most common tropical storm track is a nearly straight line toward the west, driven by an atmospheric feature known as the Hawaiian High or subtropical ridge, which sits to the northeast of Hawaii , and this ridge's sinking air structurally disfavors intensification and center-crossing near the islands even during favorable SST years. https://theconversation.com/a-second-hurricane-just-sideswiped-hawaii-why-the-islands-usual-force-field-seems-to-be-down-in-2026-291524 - [2026-09-24] Even Nolo's official watch language only asserts possibility, not certainty, of hurricane-force winds reaching land: hurricane conditions with winds of 74 miles per hour or stronger are possible on Hawaii Island — "possible," language identical to that used ahead of Lala and Lowell, both of which ultimately avoided landfall despite similarly worded watches. https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2026/09/23/flood-watch-issued-maui-county-hawaii-island-ahead-possible-tropical-cyclone/ - [2026-09-24] Hawaii's own emergency agency frames Nolo's most likely scenario as a close pass, not a strike: forecasters expect Nolo make its closest pass as a major hurricane south of Hawaiʻi Island on Saturday , consistent with the "closest approach," not landfall, framing used for every prior 2026 system. https://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/tropical-storm-nolo-updates/ - [2026-09-24] A wire summary independently reinforces that even the strongest precedent case for a Big Island hit (Hurricane Dot, 1959, cited across colleague reports) ultimately curved away and struck the western island of Kauai rather than crossing the Big Island coast, per the weather.com writeup: only one other major (Category 3 or stronger) hurricane has tracked within 150 miles of the Big Island, according to NOAA's hurricane database — August 1959's Hurricane Dot, whi ch went on to make its landfall on Kaua'i, not the Big Island. https://weather.com/2026/09/24/storms/hurricane/hawaii-hurricane-nolo-flooding-wind-forecast - [2026-09-24] Wikipedia's entry on Hurricane Iselle (2014) — the closest confirmed historical Big Island precedent — records that the storm made landfall on the island of Hawaii , but only after weakening to tropical-storm intensity beforehand, illustrating that even the rare cases of an actual center-crossing on the Big Island have historically fallen below the 74 mph hurricane threshold this contract requires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Iselle - [2026-09-24] The Central Pacific outlook itself only promises storm activity, not landfall probability, and NOAA's own outlook framing (already flagged by colleagues) is explicitly disclaimed by local trackers: NOAA's 2026 Central Pacific outlook calls for an above-normal season in the basin — that is a seasonal probability statement, not a landfall forecast for any specific Hawaiian location. https://www.hawaii-guide.com/blog/hurricane-season-in-hawaii BOTTOM LINE: Every 2026 system so far (Lala, Moke, Lowell) has followed the islands' recurring structural pattern — close approach, watch/warning issued, damaging rain and wind felt, but the storm's center staying offshore under NHC's strict landfall definition — and Nolo's own guidance now shows the model track pulling south with the Big Island outside the cone, so unless Nolo's center makes an unusual final wobble onto land at hurricane strength, the season's dominant pattern and NHC's technical bar both point toward another near-miss rather than a qualifying landfall. NOT FOUND: No NHC post-storm "best track" report yet exists for Nolo (still an active, evolving forecast as of Sept 24); no official Kalshi rules text specifying whether it defers strictly to NHC's technical "landfall" definition or would credit an eyewall/"direct hit" scenario as Yes.