Central Pacific hurricane names

The next Central Pacific name

The next storm to be named in the Central Pacific will be Olana, name 9 on list 1. After it come Pena, Ulana and Wale. List 1 has three more names after Olana; then the rotation moves to Aka, at the top of list 2. So far in 2026, Lala, Moke and Nolo have been used.

A storm that becomes a tropical storm east of 140°W is named by NHC from the eastern Pacific list and keeps that name if it moves into the Central Pacific. Only storms that reach tropical-storm strength west of 140°W take the next Hawaiian name.

How the four lists rotate

NHC’s rule is short: the names are used one after the other, and when the bottom of one list is reached, the next name is the top of the next list (Tropical Cyclone Names). After Walaka, the last name of list 4, the rotation goes back to Akoni at the top of list 1. Unlike the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, nothing resets on January 1: a Central Pacific season picks up wherever the last one stopped.

The last time the rotation wrapped around, Walaka was used in 2018 and Akoni followed in 2019. In our archive since 1980, 38 of the 48 current names have been used at least once, and 10 have never been used.

Four Hawaiian names are on NHC’s retired list for the central and eastern Pacific: Iwa (1982), Iniki (1992), Paka (1997) and Ioke (2006) (Tropical Cyclone Naming History and Retired Names).