Hurricanes Iselle and Julio threatening Hawaii Photo: AP

Hawaii survived a near miss with two hurricanes. On Friday, Hurricane Iselle, downgraded to a tropical storm, hit the Big Island of Hawaii.  Hurricane Julio is expected to pass roughly 200 miles to the north of the islands on Sunday or Monday.  Tropical Storm Iselle still brought heavy rains, strong winds, downed trees and power outages to the Big Island, Maui and Oahu.

Despite having a near miss by two hurricanes in a matter of days, overall, hurricanes are relatively rare in Hawaii.  Since formal records began to be kept in 1950, the Big Island of Hawaii has not been struck by a hurricane.  Tropical Storm Iselle is only the second tropical storm to make landfall on the Big Island.  The last hurricane to strike the state of Hawaii was Hurricane Iniki in 1992, which made landfall in Kuaui,  killing four and doing $3 billion worth of damage.

Why are hurricanes so rare in Hawaii? Dr. Steve Lyons, Tropical Weather Expert on WeatherInsights®: The Weather Channel Blog writes:  The reason is the Tropical Upper Tropospheric Trough (called TUTT for short) rules the high levels of our weather atmosphere there and creates winds typically too fast for development of a hurricane and too fast for an approaching hurricane from the east to remain a hurricane. That is why quite a few remnant tropical circulations go by south, north, or occasionally through the islands, but rarely does a tropical storm or hurricane reaches them.

But if that is the case, why then was Hawaii almost hit by two hurricanes? And why did Hurricane Iniki do so much damage?  The answer appears to be —  El Niño.   El Niño is a periodic  prolonged warming in the Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures which has an impact on the weather worldwide.  Specific to Hawaii, El Nino can shift the trade wind patterns in the North Pacific, denying the islands the protection that TUTT would otherwise provide.

Dr. Lyons goes to on to write: But paradise is not always paradise. Hawaii is vulnerable when a strong hurricane develops to the southwest, then moves north when the TUTT is displaced slightly north of its normal location. This is by far most common in El Nino years. The last time this happened was in 1992 when CAT 4 Hurricane Iniki struck Kauai, in 1982 when Hurricane Iwa nearly hit Kauai, and back in 1957 when Hurricane Nina came close to Kauai. All of these were El Nino years….So remember in Hawaii “king TUTT” rules the skies and keeps Hawaii a paradise, at least most of the time.

While El Niño  has put Hawaii at greater risk for hurricanes, it has made the United States Atlantic and Gulf Coasts somewhat safer. An El Niño in the eastern Pacific, may help to suppress hurricane formation in the Atlantic.  Experts expect fewer named storms in the Atlantic this year. Nevertheless, even one bad hurricane can be dangerous. In 1992, an  El Niño  year and the same year that Hurricane Iniki struck Kauai,  Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida and parts of the Caribbean.

Will El Niño Knock Down 2014’s Hurricanes?