2018 Hurricane Lane

Overview

2018 Hurricane Lane is a powerful Category 5 tropical cyclone currently threatening to hit the Pacific Island state of Hawaii in late August 2018.

Background

On 15th August 2018, Lane developed off a tropical wave well southwest of Baja California. It rapidly intensified and became a major hurricane on 18th August. Lane then crossed into the Central Pacific where it strengthened to a peak intensity of 260km/h (160mph), officially a Category 5 hurricane. [1]

Development

Online reaction

As the hurricane approached land, internet users on social media joked about the storm in many different ways. An example of this included 4284 people attending a fake Facebook event created by Anthony Britton titled "Blow Hurricane Lane away from Oahu." [2]

Sites such as Reddit, 4chan and imgur began hosting Lane memes, some of them featuring the character Lain Iwakura from the 1998 anime Serial Experiments: Lain.

Some Twitter users also made various fake Hurricane Lane accounts while tweeting in Hawaiian Pidgin, personifying the storm as if it had a Twitter account. An example of such an account is @hurricanelane4. [3]