Hurricane Kiko is ambling toward Hawaii. The major hurricane remained at a strong Category 3 strength as of Friday morning, with 125 mph winds. The system had rapidly intensified in recent days, becoming a 145 mph Category 4 monster before fluctuating in strength as it continues to track westward.
It’s still too early to pin down specific impacts the storm will have on Hawaii, but Kiko will likely make a close pass to the archipelago toward the middle of next week — albeit in a weakened state. Heavy rains, strong winds and very large waves are anticipated sometime in the Tuesday-into-Wednesday time frame.
There’s also a second area to watch behind Kiko, but it is currently unlikely to develop. The National Hurricane Center projects only a 20% chance of the second tropical wave earning a name.
Kiko is the 11th named storm of the 2025 eastern Pacific hurricane season. Activity is still running about 18% below average, but Kiko is likely to make up for some of that lost ground by churning through “ACE,” or accumulated cyclone energy. That’s a metric used to estimate how much heat energy a storm extracts from the ocean and converts to strong winds. Meanwhile, hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean has been relatively calm, though there are signs it may pick up soon.
