OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
2:10 PM – Saturday, August 15, 2026
Hawaii’s Big Island, already experiencing high winds and heavy rains, is bracing itself for a rare landfall after Lala strengthened from a tropical storm to a hurricane.
On Saturday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Lala’s maximum sustained winds increased to 75 mph, meaning it has upgraded from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane.
Lala is moving west at 10 mph with the center located about 75 miles south-southeast of South Point, Hawaii, the NHC reported at about 10:00 a.m. HST. It also reported a sustained wind of 41 mph and a gust wind of 64 mph.
The eyewall, a ring of thunderstorms that surrounds the calmer eye of a cyclone or hurricane, is forecast to pass over or near the Island’s southern coast by Saturday evening.
More than 200 flights across Hawaii were canceled on Saturday as a precaution, according to FlightAware.
Hawaiian Governor Josh Green (D-Hawaii) declared a state of emergency on Thursday to provide aid for “disaster damages, losses, and suffering, and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the people,” because “Lala poses an imminent danger or threat of an emergency or disaster.”
The state of emergency order directed the Adjutant General to activate the Hawaii National Guard as necessary to assist civilian authorities in disaster relief. All state agencies are also required to cooperate and extend any services, materials and facilities that may be needed for emergency responses.
Officials have opened shelters as residents prepare for flooding, power outages, potentially life-threatening landslides and hazardous ocean and rip current conditions. People are directed to remain indoors and avoid beaches.
Hawaii has not seen direct landfall of a hurricane since 1992, when Hurricane Iniki struck Kauaʻi. The only other hurricane to strike the islands in modern meteorological recorded history — dating back to 1950 — was Hurricane Dot in 1959, which also hit Kaua’i.
Lala is made more significant by the fact that there is no modern record of a hurricane making direct landfall on the Big Island, meaning it could become the first in recent memory. Historical newspaper research indicates that the last time this island experienced direct landfall was 155 years ago in 1871.
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