The latest hurricane information from the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that storm Iona is several hundred kilometers south-southeast of the capital Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
US forecasters say that storm Iona is expected to move westward over the next few days.
Iona is currently a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 120 km/h and is forecast to continue to strengthen. On July 29, the latest storm in the central Pacific is forecast to have maximum sustained winds of level 2. The storm is then expected to gradually weaken over the week.
January 26 originated from a tropical depression that formed on the night of July 26. This is the first storm in the central Pacific basin this season and the first in July in the basin since Typhoon Darby in 2022.
Along with January 1, storms Keli formed from a tropical depression southeast of Hawaii on July 28.
Typhoon Keli is about 1,600km southeast of Hawaii and is closely monitoring Iona.
The latest storm forecast shows that Keli will maintain tropical storm intensity until mid- last week when it weakens into a tropical depression.
Neither greenback nor Keli have any impact on weather in Hawaii.
While the central Pacific basin has only seen the first storms of the season, the eastern Pacific has recorded at least three storms this season. Last month, Hurricane Erick made landfall in Mexico as a Category 3 hurricane.
In early July, Flossie reached the intensity of a Category 3 hurricane as it approached the coast of Mexico, but it did not make landfall in the end. Barbara, the first storm of the season in the eastern Pacific basin, has reached Category 1 intensity off the coast of Mexico and has not made landfall.
According to the latest storm and low pressure forecast from the US National Hurricane Center, there are currently 2 low pressure areas in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Invest 98E and Invest 99E.
The first low pressure has a 60% chance of strengthening into a tropical depression or tropical storm in the next 2 days while Invest 99E has a 70% chance of developing into a tropical depression or storm in the next 2 days. The possibility of the Invest 99EU depression strengthening is increased to 99% in the forecast for the next 7 days.
The Atlantic has recorded three storms so far this season. Forecasters at Colorado State University, USA, predict the Atlantic hurricane season will be above average, with 16 named storms, 8 of which are expected to be hurricanes.
