Maui County Alerts

Current National Weather Service watches, warnings and advisories for Maui island, loaded live when you open this page, plus the Maui County planning links for all four islands in the county.

What the alert words mean

The National Weather Service uses these terms precisely, and the difference between two of them is the difference between packing and leaving.

• Watch means conditions are possible, usually within 48 hours. This is your window to prepare, fuel up and decide where you would go.
• Warning means conditions are expected, usually within 36 hours. Finish preparations and be where you intend to ride it out.
• Advisory means conditions are expected to be inconvenient or hazardous, but below warning criteria.
• Emergency, used rarely, means a particularly dangerous situation is underway.

A watch upgrading to a warning is not a small change in wording. Treat it as the signal to stop preparing and start doing.

Plan before the next one

• Look up your evacuation zoneNOAA address lookup, covers every island
• County alert centerCounty of Maui announcements
• Tsunami maps and preparednessCounty of Maui
• Maui Food BankDistribution sites and map

For a life-threatening emergency, call 911. Maui County announcements are posted to the county alert center above.

Four islands, four forecast zones

Maui County covers Maui, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe, and the National Weather Service issues alerts by forecast zone rather than by county. The alerts above are for Maui island. Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi sit in their own zones and can be under a different product at the same time, so check the island you are actually on.

The live map picks the right zone for wherever you are, including Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi.

What this page does not cover

Maui County publishes static geodata such as tsunami evacuation maps, but no live incident feed for closures, evacuations or shelter status. The alerts above are National Weather Service products only.

A refuge area is a last resort, not a first choice. Your own home, a friend or family member's home, or even your workplace may be safer than a public hurricane refuge area, because those are ordinary buildings that were never built or retrofitted to a storm shelter standard. Pick two places outside your evacuation zone now, and go to a public site only if you have no safer option. This is the county's own guidance.