Iona strengthens to a Category 3 hurricane in the central Pacific off Hawaii

HONOLULU — Iona strengthened to a Category 3 hurricane several hundred miles south-southeast of Hawaii, but poses no threat to the islands, forecasters said Tuesday. Iona is one of two major weather systems in the central Pacific Ocean. In its latest advisory, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said Iona was about 790 miles (1,271 kilometers) off Honolulu, with maximum sustained winds near 115 mph (185 kph). Additional strengthening is forecast later on Tuesday, with steady weakening expected to begin by Wednesday. Hurricane Iona is the first named storm of the hurricane season in the central Pacific and emerged Sunday from a tropical depression. It continues to trek west over warm, open waters. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Keli has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph), the NHC said Tuesday morning. It was about 960 miles (1,550 kilometers) southeast of Honolulu and was moving west at about 12 mph (19 kph). No coastal watches or warnings were in effect for the storms. The administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency on Monday hosted a statewide conference call with all counties, during which the National Weather Service provided an assessment and status of the storms. "All counties are monitoring," agency spokesperson Kiele Amundson said in an email. Another indirect impact from the weather systems could be swells, but they are relatively small and moving westward and won't create anything significant, said Derek Wroe with the weather service in Honolulu.. However, a large swell is headed toward Hawaii after being generated several hundred miles east of New Zealand. It's expected to arrive in Hawaii by Thursday, about the same time the storms pass the state. "People might wrongly attribute the swell energy to be from these tropical systems, but they're actually not," he said.