I believe that once again the NHC is making an error in their forecasting of a tropical storm in that they have publicly stated and shown the system not affecting Hawaii when in fact there is a good chance it could.

The forecast linked below ("related link") should show a cone including Hawaii and include the warning that if the system does follow the sea surface temperature contours as they have been shown to, that the system would not only steer towards and over the Hawaiian islands, but would retain more of its strength and possibly strengthen relative to its present status.

I am noting on the satellite that starting at 0815UTC the eye of Linda hooked quickly northwestward; but only briefly as 0945, Linda was bearing due west again. While I do not know the precise coordinates of these events, they do seem to correspond to the contours of the latest SST image provided by the NHC website. This is not to say that it did follow the contour and thus that it will, but if it does, it puts a Hurricane Linda on track to strike Hawaii with full storm surge and at least Category 2 hurricane conditions.

This of course does not affect La Paz. I feel obligated to post this in case anyone who reads this has friends or family in Hawaii they can warn, especially if they are on the western or northern shores of the big island. It is also posted in order to demonstrate the error in the National Hurricane Center's forecasting methodology, as I have had the unfortunate pleasure of demonstrating to them each year since 2015.

Again, my own amendment to the NHC's present forecast for Linda would expand the cone to include Hawaii and demonstrate retention of strength and possible increase relative to present strength which at the time of forecast was 105mph winds. This means that I am predicting that Hawaii could be directly affected by a stronger system than the NHC currently predicts could not affect directly Hawaii per their visual forecast.