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A slowly strengthening Hurricane Lala was moving through the ocean around Hawaii on Saturday as it lashed the islands with rain and wind. The storm was reclassified as a hurricane at 9 a.m. local time after it reached sustained wind speeds of 75 mph. 

The core of the storm brushed the bottom of the Big Island as it continued westward, according to a National Hurricane Center discussion. Lala did not technically make landfall upon the southern tip of the island as it moved northwest and away from the Big Island at about 9 mph Saturday evening.

Lala is largely expected to remain south of the smaller islands as well, but it could turn toward the northwestern Hawaiian Islands depending on conditions, per a National Hurricane Center discussion. 

The Big Island is being battered by hurricane-strength winds, heavy rainfall and dangerous waves even though the storm is likely to weaken as it passes by. 

Only two hurricanes are known to have made landfall in the Hawaiian islands since records began in 1949: Hurricane Dot in 1959 and Hurricane Iniki in 1992. However, hurricanes passing just off the islands can cause — and have caused — significant damage.

• Related: Hawaii is entering a dangerous stretch as a powerful El Niño builds

“You have to be careful. … Do not go out if it’s unsafe,” Gov. Josh Green told residents Friday evening, calling the storm “serious.”

Even by Saturday morning, the storm’s outer bands had already dumped 12 inches of rain on some of the Big Island’s eastern slopes, said Ian Morrison, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Areas at lower elevations had significantly lower totals.

Rain was expected to be the biggest threat from Lala. Hawaii Island’s steep, rugged terrain can force moist air upward, intensifying rainfall and increasing the risk of flash floods and mudslides.

Winds were also a factor: Weather instruments at the summit of Mauna Kea, the highest point on Hawaii at close to 13,800 feet, recorded a 140 mph gust early Saturday afternoon.

The National Weather Service warned of flash floods on Big Island. The flooding could impact “small creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses,” according to the warning, “as well as other poor drainage and low-lying areas.”

Meteorologists expect the storm to produce 10 to 20 inches across the Big Island, with as much as 25 inches in some areas. The island of Maui and the rest of the island chain is expected to experience less precipitation, but still as much as 8 inches in some places, according to weather service forecasts, resulting in “life-threatening flooding and mudslides, especially in areas of steep terrain.”

Heavy surf was also expected.

After impacting the Big Island and Maui, “damaging winds are expected to spread westward to Oahu and Kauai later this evening and Sunday,” the weather service noted in an update shortly before noon local time. “It is very important to note that the mountainous terrain of the islands will likely produce localized areas of highly enhanced and damaging winds, even well away from the tropical cyclone center.”

Morrison said that while the Big Island was under a hurricane warning, Lala is expected to hit other areas of the state with tropical storm strength, with winds of 35 to 45 mph and gusts up to 55 mph starting Sunday and lasting through Monday.

The hurricane warning is the first issued for Hawaii Island since Hurricane Lane approached the state in 2018, according to the National Hurricane Center. The last hurricane warning anywhere in Hawaii was issued during Hurricane Douglas in 2020.

The last hurricane to make landfall in Hawaii was Hurricane Iniki, which struck Kauai as a Category 4 storm in 1992.

Hurricanes rarely make landfall in Hawaii in part because the chances are simply low: The islands are small blips in a vast ocean, Morrison said.

But the formation of the hurricane itself is affected by what experts believe will be an extremely strong El Niño. El Niño is a pattern in which cycles of cold and warm waters in the Pacific Ocean cause change to the weather, temperature, atmosphere and more.

In a typical year, wind shear, which is changes in wind speed and direction, surrounds the islands. When wind shear comes into contact with a tropical storm, the shear weakens the storm, according to Morrison.

But warm waters from El Niño have caused a weaker wind shear, making it easier for the storm to strengthen to a category 1 hurricane.

“We just can never know if a storm will turn,” Green warned Friday evening, a day after declaring a state of emergency and activating the state’s Major Disaster Fund. The move allows for the activation of the state’s National Guard, if necessary, and directs state agencies to coordinate emergency response efforts.

Authorities have asked the state’s residents to secure outdoor furniture and other loose objects, clear gutters and drains, move valuables off the floor and prepare for power outages. Residents and visitors should stay away from beaches and coastal areas during periods of rough surf.

“As the weather comes in, stay home if you can,” Morrison said. “Check in on your neighbors, be safe, and listen to our civil servants out there. If they tell you to evacuate, please evacuate.”