HONOLULU (KHON2) - On the forecast track, the center of Milton is forecast to move near or just north of the Yucatan Peninsula tonight and Tuesday, then cross the eastern Gulf of Mexico and approach the west coast of the Florida Peninsula on Wednesday. Maximum sustained winds are near 165 mph with higher gusts. Milton is a potentially catastrophic category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. While fluctuations in intensity are expected, Milton is forecast to remain an extremelydangerous hurricane through landfall in Florida. Visible satellite imagery this afternoon shows mainly scattered clouds over and around the islands moving in on the trades, while radar imagery shows only isolated light showers impacting some windward areas at times. Water vapor satellite imagery depicts a weak upper- level low centered around 50 miles northeast of Maui County this morning as well. The weakness of this low has prevented the development of thunderstorms over the past couple of days, so this system will merely act to slightly enhance local windward and mountain shower activity into Tuesday morning. However, due to an area of dry air seen moving west into the state on the CIMSS MIMIC precipitable water imagery, rainfall amounts are expected to be on the lighter side. Far north of the Hawaiian Islands, the subtropical ridge will reestablish itself, but remain a bit subdued this week, as a series of cold frontal systems moving across the north central Pacific Ocean moderate the ridge intensity. As a result, trade wind speeds will remain gentle to locally breezy tonight into next weekend. The aforementioned upper low will slowly drift northeast away from the state over the next couple of days, allowing the return of a more typical trade pattern of brief passing showers for the next seven days. The focus will be mainly over the windward and mountain areas and favoring the overnight to early morning hours. Only subtle variations in the day to day moisture and rainfall patterns are shown in the model guidance for the next several days.