Hurricane Ioke

Hurricane Ioke

Hurricane Ioke was the first storm to form in the Central Pacific in the 2006 Pacific hurricane season. It was the fifth-most intense Pacific hurricane on record, tied with 1973’s Hurricane Ava. It reached Category 5 status on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale on three different occasions. It left moderate damage on Wake Island totaling USD 88 million.

About Hurricane Ioke in brief

Summary Hurricane IokeHurricane Ioke was the first storm to form in the Central Pacific in the 2006 Pacific hurricane season. It was the fifth-most intense Pacific hurricane on record, tied with 1973’s Hurricane Ava. A crew of 12 people rode out the hurricane in a hurricane-proof bunker on Johnston Atoll. Ioke left moderate damage on Wake Island totaling USD 88 million ), including blown off roofs and damaged buildings, though the infrastructure of the island was left intact; all military personnel were evacuated from the island. The remnants of Ioke accelerated northeastward and ultimately crossed into the Bering Sea, and then the Gulf of Alaska. It did not affect any permanently-populated areas in the Pacific or Western Pacific basins as a hurricane or a typhoon. It reached Category 5 status on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale on three different occasions. It became an extratropical cyclone on September 6. The storm was the most intense hurricane ever recorded in theCentral Pacific, as well as the fifth most intense in the entire Pacific Hurricane System. It also had the highest accumulated cyclone energy of any tropical cyclone ever recorded. It is the only storm to have been named after a person or a group of people, and the only one to have had a name that included the word “Ioke” or “Joyce” in its name.

It made landfall on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i on September 7. It has been named the most powerful storm in the history of the Pacific Ocean, along with Typhoon Ioke and Typhoon Ike. It remains the only typhoon to have made landfall in the United States as a tropical storm or typhoon, and is the first in the Pacific Pacific Ocean to do so since Hurricane Iniki in 1978. It had a maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 km/h) and had sustained winds up to 175 mph (280 km/hr) as it moved west-northwestward. It later weakened to Category 2 status before crossing the International Date Line on August 25. It eventually weakened to a tropical depression on August 26. It then weakened to tropical storm-force winds on August 27. On August 28 it became a tropical cyclone, and on August 29 it was downgraded to tropical depression-level winds. It continued to weaken as it turned northwestward and northward, and by September 6 it had transitioned into an extraterrestrial cyclone. The cyclone was last seen on September 8 near the Hawaiian Islands. The system is now a remnant low-level circulation of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITZ) and is no longer an active tropical storm.