Madeline, as it weakened with sustained winds of about 70 mph (113 kph) on Wednesday afternoon, was about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of the Big Island, said Central Pacific Hurricane Center meteorologist Ray Tanabe.
"Overall, it appears global warming might not affect the strengths of most hurricanes," says meteorologist Chris Landsea of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division in Miami, Florida.
"It is a potentially devastating hurricane," Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said in a telephone interview.
"This is an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane," Richard Knabb, a meteorologist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, told The Associated Press.
A tropical storm which has been battering the south-west of Mexico has been upgraded to a category one hurricane by US meteorologists.
Matthew lasted more days in October than any Category 4-5 hurricane on record, meteorologists noted.
While out to sea in August of the 1965 Atlantic hurricane season, Stormfury meteorologists decided that Hurricane Betsy was a good candidate for seeding.
For decades, Kerry Emanuel, the meteorologist and hurricane specialist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was known as a cautious centrist on questions of global warming and hurricane ferocity.
Re "With Findings on Storms, Centrist Recasts Warming Debate" (Jan . 10: Kerry Emanuel may be a noted meteorologist and hurricane specialist, but he is misinformed about Fire Island homes.
Conditions have, in fact, worsened in some rain-starved regions untouched by the hurricane's gray clouds, meteorologists said.
