#TropicalStormMoke is the late-August 2026 Pacific tropical storm that passed south of Hawaii’s Big Island just eight days after #HurricaneLala, dropping 5–15 inches of additional rain on already-saturated terrain and prompting a fresh round of flash-flood and mudslide warnings across a landscape still counting the damage from Lala’s Category 1 impact.
Quick Facts
- Closest approach: Sunday, August 23, 2026, passing a couple of hundred miles south of the Big Island
- Peak intensity: low-end tropical storm, 40 mph sustained winds (per CNN)
- Rainfall: 5–10 inches forecast; maximum 15 inches over parts of the Big Island (per ABC News)
- Weakening: downgraded to a tropical depression late Sunday, per NPR
- Context: arrived eight days after #HurricaneLala; ninth named storm season entry into a busy 2026 Pacific season
- Threat driver: already-saturated Big Island soils and damaged infrastructure
Origin
Moke formed in the central Eastern Pacific in mid-August 2026 as part of a busy Pacific hurricane season and tracked steadily west across warm sea-surface waters. By August 22, Al Jazeera and ABC News were reporting the National Hurricane Center’s tropical-storm-force wind and heavy-rain outlook for the Hawaiian Islands, with the storm’s center forecast to skirt south of the Big Island rather than make direct landfall.
What Happened
On Sunday, August 23, Moke’s center passed a couple of hundred miles south of the Big Island as a low-end tropical storm with 40 mph winds before weakening to a tropical depression later that day. Outer bands wrapped rainfall totaling 5–10 inches across the Big Island, with a forecast maximum near 15 inches. CNN reported that rain persisted on parts of the islands into Monday and Tuesday, and the Hawai’i Emergency Management Agency issued flash-flood watches focused on steep terrain and areas hit hardest by #HurricaneLala the previous week.
Reactions
The storm’s impact was framed in the context of Lala’s damage. PBS NewsHour highlighted the compounding pressure on communities still without power and with damaged homes, while Yale Climate Connections used Moke’s arrival to illustrate how back-to-back tropical systems on warming Pacific waters raise the effective flood risk beyond what any single storm forecast would suggest. NPR emphasized state and county coordination on staging shelters and pre-positioning debris and repair crews.
Aftermath
Moke itself did not produce a headline-grabbing single event on the scale of Lala’s landfall-adjacent damage, but the additional rain slowed cleanup, extended shelter operations, and reset assessment timelines for Hawaiian Electric’s rural restoration work. The two-storm sequence became a case study for climate researchers on how compound tropical events can produce cumulative damage that exceeds either storm’s individual footprint.
Variations & Related Tags
Reads as the second half of a two-storm pair with #HurricaneLala; sits within the broader arc of a busy 2026 Pacific season and alongside prior Hawaii-adjacent catastrophes indexed at #MauiFires.
Sources
- https://abcnews.com/US/tropical-storm-moke-pass-south-hawaii-bringing-heavy/story?id=135871424
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/tropical-storm-moke-carrying-more-rain-toward-hurricane-damaged-hawaii
- https://www.npr.org/2026/08/23/nx-s1-5941769/tropical-storm-moke-hawaii
- https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/23/weather/tropical-storm-moke-dumping-heavy-rain-on-hawaiis-big-island-climate
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/22/tropical-storm-moke-advances-towards-hawaii-with-heavy-rain-strong-winds
- https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/08/two-atlantic-tropical-disturbances-to-watch-tropical-storm-moke-brings-rain-to-hawaii/
- https://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/tropical-storm-moke/