Hurricane Dora (2023)

Hurricane Dora

Hurricane Dora at peak intensity on August 6
Meteorological history
Formed	July 31, 2023
Extratropical	August 21, 2023
Dissipated	August 22, 2023
Category 4 major hurricane
1-minute sustained (SSHWS/NWS)
Highest winds	150 mph (240 km/h)
Lowest pressure	939 mbar (hPa); 27.73 inHg
Overall effects
Fatalities	None
Damage	None
Areas affected	Hawaii, Johnston Atoll, Alaska, Wake Island
IBTrACS
Part of the 2023 Pacific hurricane and typhoon seasons

Hurricane Dora, also known as Typhoon Dora, was a long‑lived and powerful tropical cyclone that tracked across all three North Pacific tropical cyclone basins in August 2023. The fourth named storm, fourth hurricane, and second major hurricane^{[nb 1]} of the 2023 Pacific hurricane season, Dora developed on July 31, from a tropical wave that had crossed over Central America from the North Atlantic, and became a tropical storm early the following day. During August 2–3, the system rapidly intensified to Category 4 strength. The same day, Dora moved into the Central Pacific basin from the East Pacific basin. Dora's annular structure deteriorated, leaving the system susceptible to dry air intrusions, and the hurricane passed south of Johnston Island. Dora weakened to Category 3 strength on the morning of August 10.

The same day, southerly shear degraded the hurricane's structure as it shifted its course toward the west-northwest along the southwest edge of a high pressure system. Dora weakened to Category 2 strength about 900 mi (1,450 km) south of Midway Island. Dora moved westward while a Pacific hurricane, and crossed the International Date Line on August 11, at which time it was reclassified as a typhoon, becoming the second tropical cyclone on record to remain at hurricane strength across all three North Pacific tropical cyclone basins, along with Hurricane John in 1994. As the sixth typhoon of the 2023 Pacific typhoon season, Dora would gradually deteriorate over open waters. As Dora moved north under a mid-latitude upper low, it became strongly influenced by the low and started to exhibit subtropical characteristics, prompting the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) to reclassify the storm as a subtropical cyclone at 15:00 UTC on August 18. The agency continued tracking Dora until August 22, when Dora briefly re-entered the Central Pacific basin as a subtropical depression, while the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) monitored the cyclone until 06:00 UTC that day.

Hurricane Dora never posed a direct threat to any land mass. However, the storm's high winds south of Hawaii, together with an anticyclone to the north of Hawaii, produced strong gradient winds over the islands, which in turn helped cause the 2023 Hawaii wildfires. Philippe Papin, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center, argued that Hurricane Dora played only a minor role in "enhancing low-level flow over Maui at fire initiation time." Nonetheless, given Dora's indirect meteorological role in the wildfires and devastation those fires caused, the name Dora was retired following the season, and will never be used again for an eastern Pacific tropical system.

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