Oʻahu Alerts

Current National Weather Service watches, warnings and advisories for Oʻahu, loaded live when you open this page, plus the Honolulu County planning links worth using while the weather is still calm.

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

• Oʻahu Hazard ExplorerLook up your evacuation zone by address, City & County of Honolulu
• Potential hurricane refuge sitesCity & County of Honolulu
• Sign up for HNL AlertOfficial emergency notifications for Oʻahu
• Live shelter dashboardCity & County of Honolulu, opens during an event
• Tsunami assembly areasCity & County of Honolulu
• Mayor's releasesEmergency announcements land here first

Honolulu Department of Emergency Management: 808-723-8960. For a life-threatening emergency, call 911.

What this page does not cover

Honolulu County publishes maps and planning geodata, but no live incident feed for road closures, evacuations or shelter status the way Hawaiʻi County does. So the alerts above are National Weather Service products only. County announcements, road closures and refuge openings come from the links above, and during an event they change faster than any page that is not the county's own.

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.