The Pacific Ocean gets a lot of attention for hurricane activity. One of two hot spots is the eastern Pacific, from the west coast of Central America out to about 140^oW longitude. The other is the western Pacific west of the International Date Line, where hurricanes are called typhoons.

In between is a swath of ocean south of Hawaii that's less of a hurricane hot spot. On average, only one or two tropical systems develop in this area each year, and in some years, there aren't any. So it was unusual a few weeks ago to see two at once - here's a satellite view of Alika and Ele passing just south of Hawaii. Understandably, storms that form in this region get names of a Hawaiian flavor.

While it's rare for one of these storms to make a direct hit on Hawaii, it can happen. The worst hurricane to do so in the last century was bearing down on the western island of Kauai ten years ago today. That was Hurricane Iniki, which blasted the island with 130 mph winds on September 11, 1992. Iniki even interrupted the filming of the movie Jurassic Park, which was being shot on the island at the time.