Recovering Hawaii still on alert as Hurricane Gilma continues approach

As portions of Hawaii's Big Island recover from the flooding rains and damaging winds of Tropical Storm Hone, residents across the state on Tuesday were gearing up for Hurricane Gilma.

The Category 1 storm has yet to trigger any land advisories as it churns in open waters, but forecasters have warned Gilma could unleash torrential rain, showers, heavy winds and produce dangerous rip currents later in the week. Residents across the state began preparing for the rare back-to-back storms, even while Hone was drenching portions of Big Island with more than two feet of rain.

In Lower Puna, just south of Hilo in the Big Island, Laurie Lyon-Makaimoku and her family pulled their camping stove and propane tank from their outdoor garage and made sure to pick the avocadoes and breadfruit off their trees before Gilma's winds reach the state.

“We got a ton of rain,” she told USA TODAY. “Sunday afternoon, everything started settling down, but it was raining all day Friday. We were doing our storm prep in the rain. But the worst of it was on Saturday.”

On its current track, forecasters expect Gilma to begin swiping the state late this week and into the weekend as it pushes just north of the islands.

Hurricane Gilma tracker:See projected path of second Pacific storm approaching Hawaii

Big Island still in 'recovery stage' after Hone brings heavy rain, winds

Some parts of the Big Island were still recovering on Tuesday after Tropical Storm Hone unleashed torrential rain over the weekend as it developed into a Category 1 hurricane before returning to tropical storm status.

The storm flooded major roads, sent rivers cresting, cut power to thousands of homes and disrupted air travel. At least five public schools were closed on Monday because of power outages and dangerous road conditions while officials kept several public parks and beaches closed.

As of Tuesday morning, the vast majority of utility customers who lost power over the weekend had power again, according to PowerOutage.us. At its peak, outages had affected more than 24,000 residents.

"The county is starting to get into its recovery stage," Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth said in a Facebook video on Monday. "We still have some issues out there, still some roads that are closed."

Where is Hurricane Gilma?

Hurricane Gilma, a Category 1 storm, was located 945 miles east of Hilo in the Big Island as of early Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The storm lost some strength on Monday and continued weakening Tuesday as it pushes through the central Pacific basin and reaches an area of higher wind shear and drier air, the hurricane center said.

As of Tuesday, the storm had sustained winds of 75 mph with some higher gusts. Its tropical-storm-force winds extend 70 miles from its center.

Tropical Storm Hector expected to speed up and gradually weaken

Hone and Gilma were not the only storms to emerge recently in the active central and eastern Pacific basins.

Tropical Storm Hector, to the east of Hurricane Gilma and about 1,270 miles west-southwest of Mexico's Baja peninsula, was churning west at 12 mph, according to the latest update from the NationalHurricane Center. The storm had sustained winds of 45 mph and its tropical-storm-force winds extended out up to 90 miles from its center.

Federal forecasters project the storm will strengthen on Tuesday before gradually weakening over the coming days as it enters the central Pacific basin. It's far too early to tell how close the storm will come to Hawaii or whether the state will be impacted by it.

Understanding hurricane basins and names

Tropical storms and hurricanes form in what meteorologists call "basins." Americans are most familiar with the Atlantic basin, which includes storms that form in the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The vast majority of storms that affect the U.S. are Atlantic basin storms.

The Pacific has two basins with storms that impact the U.S., in the eastern and central parts of the ocean. Eastern and central Pacific storms rarely affect land areas and typically head out to sea. However, they can sometimes impact the west coast of Mexico, the Southwest U.S. and Hawaii.

The Atlantic and eastern Pacific basins have a six-year rotating list of names to identify the storms, updated and maintained by the World Meteorological Organization, NOAA said. The Central Pacific basin has its own rotating list of Hawaiian names.

Often storms will cross from the eastern to the central Pacific basins. In that case, the original name of the storm is kept; this will happen with Hurricane Gilma later this week. Only if the storm first forms in the Central Pacific basin will it get a Hawaiian name, such as Hurricane Hone.