Approaching, but still far out

LIHUE — Don’t let your guard down. 

That’s Jay Breidenbach’s advice as Hurricane Olaf approaches the Hawaiian islands.

Right now, Olaf is a strong Category 4 storm with 150 mile-per-hour winds — and it’s headed straight for Hawaii, said Breidenbach, who is the acting director operations for the National Weather Service’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center. What’s more, it could get stronger.

Luckily, the forecast calls for the storm to swing and miss the islands. But that direction change isn’t predicted to happen until Friday or Saturday.

The storm is still 1,000 miles southeast of the Big Island, and a lot can change over the course of 1,000 miles.

“Right now, I don’t see a huge concern for Kauai other than big waves toward the latter part of the weekend,” Breidenbach said. “Even though I’m pretty confident in our forecast, it’s such a powerful storm it could be a dangerous thing.

“It’s still moving in the direction of the islands right now and it won’t start moving away from the islands until Saturday, so I wouldn’t let my guard down until we actually start to see it move away,” he added.

By week’s end, Breidenbach predicts Kauai’s east-facing shores could see big waves, but not as big as the waves the storm is expected to generate off the Big Island and windward Oahu.

“Kauai is a little more shadowed from a storm in that direction, so the surf is probably not going to be as big on Kauai as other islands, but you will see some bigger waves,” Breidenbach said.

Surf heights on Kauai shores are expected to begin rising Thursday, and could reach advisory level heights of 10 to 15 feet starting on Friday, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

The storm is not expected to bring rain to the Garden Isle, Breidenbach said. If the island does see rain this weekend, it’s probably not due to Olaf, he said.

“All the islands look in halfway decent shape right now,” he said.