Hurricane Olivia was a Category 4 hurricane that hit Hawaii as a weakening tropical storm in September 2018, causing severe flooding and wind damage. Olivia was the first tropical cyclone to make landfall on either Maui or Lanai since modern weather records began. It was the fifteenth named storm, ninth hurricane, and sixth major hurricane of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season. A tropical depression formed southwest of Mexico on September 1 and strengthened into a tropical storm a day later. Olivia peaked as a Category 4 hurricane on September 7, with winds of 130 mph (210 km/h) and a minimum pressure of 951 mbar (28.08 inHg). On September 12 the storm weakened and made brief landfalls on Maui and Lanai, with winds of 45 mph (70 km/h). Torrential rainfall occurred on both Maui and Oahu, peaking at 12.93 in (328 mm) in West Wailuaiki, Maui. Olivia felled trees on Maui, and some homes and vehicles were swept away by floodwaters. (This article is part of a featured topic: 2018 Pacific hurricane season.).

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_topics/2018_Pacific_hurricane_season

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1861:

American Civil War: The first major battle west of the Mississippi River, the Battle of Wilson's Creek, was fought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wilson%27s_Creek

1897:

German chemist Felix Hoffmann discovered an improved way of synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) (package pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin

1953:

First Indochina War: The French Union withdrew its forces from Operation Camargue against the Việt Minh in central modern-day Vietnam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Camargue

2019:

Having already caused severe flooding in the Philippines, Typhoon Lekima made landfall in Zhejiang, China, and went on to become the costliest typhoon in Chinese history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Lekima

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

sere: 1. (archaic or literary, poetic) Without moisture; dry. 2. (obsolete) Of fabrics: threadbare, worn out. [...] 3. (obsolete or Britain, dialectal) Individual, separate, set apart. 4. (obsolete or Britain, dialectal) Different; diverse. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sere

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Great leaps forward in history are often, in fact, giant leaps back. The Reformation did initiate brutal sectarian warfare. The French Revolution did degenerate into barbarous tyranny. Communist utopias — allegedly the wave of an Elysian future — turned into murderous nightmares. Modern neoliberalism has, for its part, created a global capitalist machine that is seemingly beyond anyone’s control, fast destroying the planet’s climate, wiping out vast tracts of life on Earth while consigning millions of Americans to economic stagnation and cultural despair. And at an even deeper level, the more we discover about human evolution, the more illusory certain ideas of progress become.   --Andrew Sullivan https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andrew_Sullivan