LIHUE — Kauai’s going to be the last island to get some relief from the rainy weather, according to the National Weather Service, but the trade winds are coming back into the picture over the weekend.
It’s been several days of intermittent rain, thanks to a storm system that’s been lingering around the islands.
NWS numbers show the system is dropping between one and four inches of rain throughout the island in a 24-hour period.
In the 24-hour period ending at 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday Kalaheo received 1.04 inches, Kapahi received 4.3 inches, Anahola received 3.89 inches, and Hanalei received 0.93 inches.
The storm system weakened during the day Wednesday, but forecasters with NWS said it’s again intensifying to the west of the islands.
“The threat for heavy showers and thunderstorms is likely to linger into Friday, and things will start to break down with the system,” said forecaster Derek Wroe on Wednesday. “Looks like still a chance for widespread showers on Friday.”
Tradewinds will start showing up over the weekend, and things will start to stabilize, Wroe said.
The storm has provided a little reprieve from the heat over the last few days, due to the cloud cover, but Hawaii has been breaking daily heat records for the past month.
“We’ve been in an extended period, going into a month now, where we’ve had a breakdown of the trades, or they’ve been weaker than normal,” Wroe said. “Warmer-than-normal sea-surface temperatures bumps up the temperatures, too.”
Meanwhile, the state is a month into hurricane season, and as of Wednesday, there’s no tropical cyclone activity in the Central Pacific.
I don’t understand your headline. Why does Kauai need relief from rainfall when the island is in a drought? Duh!
Harlingen, Texas, on the Mainland, received 12-15 inches of rain in 2.5 hours!!! And you are complaining????
This past week was a rare, out of season Kona Storm of unprecedented magnitude. The headline should read RELIEF FROM THE DROUGHT! We had record heat waves and fire events that now are pleasantly replaced with cooler temperatures and greener hillsides….