MIAMI — Hurricane Fausto has strengthened into a Category 2 storm in the Pacific Ocean and is expected to approach the Hawaiian Islands next week, forecasters said. The risk of some impacts from wind and rainfall in the area is increasing, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Friday, but it’s too soon to determine the exact location or potential magnitude. “Interests in the Hawaiian Islands should monitor the progress of Fausto,” the center said in an advisory. Fausto was far from land, about 2,250 kilometres west of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico and about 2,400 kilometres east of Hilo, Hawaii. Maximum sustained winds were around 169 kph. The hurricane center said swells generated by Fausto could cause life-threatening surf and rip tides in parts of southern California. Gradual weakening was expected during the coming days. Also in the Pacific, a tropical depression about 965 kilometres south of Zihuatanejo, Mexico, could become a tropical storm Friday and strengthen into a hurricane in the coming days, the center said. It wasn’t threatening land. Fausto has been churning in the Pacific while Tropical Storm Bertha moved along the Gulf Coast. Bertha brought heavy surf and some flooding to southern Louisiana and Texas as it came ashore for a second time Thursday. By late that evening, the hurricane center declared Bertha had dissipated. The Associated Press
