How close can it get?

- - Closest Point of Approach - -

You have seen the by the National Hurricane Center issued five day forecast of the path of a hurricane, and you are wondering just "how close it can get". With this interactive program you can quickly determine an approximation of the closest point of approach of the eye of the storm to your island. Just select your island (or if your island is not listed enter your coordinates) and five day forecast, consisting of the latitude and longitude pairs of the forecast and click on 'Show me how close it can get...'. You can use the U.S. Gazetteer to find latitude/longitude coordinates for US cities and zipcodes and zipcodes or the Astrodienst-website for World-wide queries (results have to be converted from dd:mm:ss-format). A related tool on this website (How close is it?) calculates how far the storm is right now and how long before you might experience strong winds.

This is the Pacific version of the popular "how close can it get" tool on this website. From the dropdown select your location of interest. Locations include several towns on the islands of Hawai'i, incl. Honolulu, Oahu, Kona, Big Island, and Kihei, Maui. Also included are locations in Mexico, like Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta and a few in the US.

Currently Tracking (if any):
- Post-tropical Cyclone Fausto (latest advisory: 500 AM HST Wed Jul 29 2026) -> skip to prefilled form
- Hurricane Genevieve (latest advisory: 1100 AM HST Wed Jul 29 2026) -> skip to prefilled form

Select your Location:
Enter Five Day Forecast:

Current Position:

12 hours:

24 hours:

36 hours:

48 hours:

72 hours:

96 hours:

120 hours:

Or enter your Coordinates:
Lat: Lon:

Generate Map (slower...)

Help? The three day forecast is can be found in the Tropical Cyclone Discussion product. It is issued by the National Hurricane Center/Tropical Prediction Center and linked directly from the Quick Hurricane Web Resource Navigator (QHWRN). Lat/Lon should be entered in decimal degrees, not in the dd:mm:ss-format, so: 18.5, not: 18:30:00. Valid range: latitude 0-90 degrees, longitude: 0-180 degrees. When numbers are entered in the 'Or enter your Coordinates' box, the island selection is ignored. The coordinates for the islands are based on the corresponding National Weather Service weather stations. The closest point of approach is defined as the shortest (great circle) distance between the location of interest and the loxodrome (rhumb line) defined by two forecast points. The algorithm and code for the great circle distance calculation was provided by the National Geodetic Survey using GRS80/WGS84 as the reference ellipsoid.