Hurricane Karina formed Sunday in the Pacific Ocean, and forecasters said it could strengthen into a major hurricane within about a day as it moved over open water. The storm was not threatening land on Sunday, but it was already sending a warning to coastal areas far from its center.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said Karina had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph and was a Category 1 hurricane. It was about 880 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula and moving west-northwest at 9 mph, with its forecast path taking it farther out into the Pacific.
That is why people searching for Hurricane In Southern California are seeing this storm now. Karina is still over the Pacific Ocean and is not expected to make landfall, but its swells are likely to bring dangerous surf and rip current conditions along parts of southwest Mexico and the Baja California Peninsula. For a storm this far offshore, the hazard is not wind on land. It is the long push of ocean energy that can travel hundreds of miles and turn otherwise calm beaches into dangerous water.
The reason forecasters expect Karina to build so quickly is simple: it is moving over open Pacific waters, where warm ocean energy can feed a cyclone with little disruption. The National Hurricane Center said it was expected to undergo steady or rapid strengthening and could reach major hurricane status, which means Category 3 or higher, with winds of at least 111 mph. That leaves one open question that matters most to anyone watching the storm: how long Karina can keep gaining strength before it weakens or bends even farther away into the Pacific.
Karina was not the only system under watch. Tropical Storm Lowell was about 985 miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and no immediate threat to land. Forecasters said it could become a hurricane by Monday night or Tuesday, adding another storm to a Pacific basin that is already active and likely to stay that way.
