Hurricane Hector, first forming on July 31 over the eastern Pacific Ocean, has entered the central Pacific Ocean this week. Crossing to the south of Hawaii on Wednesday, the storm is forecast to transition into a typhoon on Monday.
Hector will begin to take a turn to the northwest this weekend. As it continues to track a westward direction as a hurricane, it will end up becoming a typhoon once it cross the International Date Line. While the eastern and central Pacific Oceans as well as the Atlantic Ocean have hurricanes, the western Pacific Ocean has typhoons and the Indian and South Pacific Oceans have cyclones.
Likely staying as a hurricane or typhoon for nearly two weeks, Hector will be a long-lived, powerful storm but will reach the length of Hurricane John in 1994. John formed southwest of the Mexican coast on August 11 with a similar track to Hector, moving west and passing south of Hawaii. In the Pacific Ocean it became a typhoon, circling around for days before moving back into the central Pacific Ocean. Shortly thereafter, it dissipated on September 10, completing its record 28.75 days as a named storm, a record for any basin.