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Lala strengthened from a tropical storm into a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (about 120 km/h) as it moved past Hawaii's Big Island.
The eye passed the island's southern tip, so Lala did not make a direct landfall, but it still produced more than 28 inches of rain in places, at least one death and about 100 damaged or destroyed homes.
More than 42,000 utility customers lost power across Hawaii, including over 31,000 on the Big Island and over 7,200 in Maui County.
Both major Big Island airports — Hilo International and Ellison Onizuka Kona International at Keahole — were shut at 2:00 p.m. local time, and airlines cancelled neighbour-island and mainland flights.
No hurricane has made landfall anywhere in Hawaii since Iniki struck Kauai in September 1992, and the Big Island was last hit directly in 1871.
A tropical cyclone in the Atlantic and Pacific basins is called a hurricane once its maximum sustained wind speed reaches 74 mph (119 km/h). The Saffir-Simpson scale then grades it from Category 1 to Category 5 purely on that sustained wind speed. Crucially, the scale says nothing about storm surge, rainfall or flooding — which is why a 'mere' Category 1 like Lala could still kill, sweep away houses and drop over 28 inches of rain. The same phenomenon is called a typhoon in the north-west Pacific and a cyclone in the north Indian Ocean.
Simple Analogy: Think of it as grading a car only by its top speed: it tells you how hard the wind hits, not how much water the storm dumps or how far the sea pushes inland.
Hawaii is an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean and the only US state outside North America. The Big Island (officially Hawaii Island) is the largest of the chain and carries the Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa volcanoes; Hilo lies on its wetter eastern side and Kona on the drier western side. Naalehu, where houses were swept away, is near the island's southern tip. Maui County, which includes Maui island, lies to the north-west.
GS Paper 1 > Geography > Important geophysical phenomena; cyclones and their classification
General Awareness > Physical Geography and current events
General Awareness > Environment and disasters
A 1-to-5 classification of hurricanes based only on maximum sustained wind speed; it does not measure storm surge or rainfall.
The highest average wind speed over a standard averaging period near the storm's centre, used to classify tropical cyclones.
The Honolulu-based US centre that issues tropical cyclone advisories for the central Pacific basin, which includes Hawaii.