LIHUE — In some parts of the island, the vegetation is recovering from a severe summertime drought. Grasses have started to regrow, but remain short. It’s all evidence of Kauai’s recent resurgence in rainfall, which has begun to even out
LIHUE — In some parts of the island, the vegetation is recovering from a severe summertime drought. Grasses have started to regrow, but remain short.
It’s all evidence of Kauai’s recent resurgence in rainfall, which has begun to even out the island’s annual inch count. A wet August led the rebound, with severe drought conditions persisting the longest, but eventually subsiding, at lower elevations from Hanapepe to Kalepa Ridge. Creeks and streams that were running low or even dry, are gushing again. Brown brush has turned lush green.
In November, Lihue Airport received above-normal rainfall — 5.7 inches, which is about 1.3 inches more than the average. Through the first 11 months of the year, Lihue Airport measured nearly 29 inches of rain, or about 90 percent of average.
The rain gauge in Mana recorded nearly 21 inches through the end of November, or about 124 percent of average.
Mount Waialeale, widely considered one of the wettest spots on Earth, recorded 316 inches during the same period. That’s 87 percent of normal.
Though Waialeale’s average annual rainfall total is 394 inches, recent years have been starkly different. In 2014 the USGS gauge on Waialeale recorded 267 inches of cumulative rainfall. While still the highest rainfall total in the state, that’s 32 percent less than the annual average. It’s also the lowest annual total at the site since 1993, when 244 inches fell.
Kevin Kodama, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Honolulu, said the wet weather from August through November should help Kauai finish out 2015 with near average rainfall totals. But forecasters say the rain is apt to slow this winter, with December likely to be drier than usual.
The culprit is El Nino, an irregularly occurring weather pattern that results in temperature and rainfall changes in the Pacific.
“Normally December is one of the wettest months of the year, but we’re in a strong El Nino right now,” Kodama said. “We’re calling for a drier than average wet season with the dryness starting in December.”
El Nino also was blamed for the state’s active hurricane season, which ended Nov. 30. The archipelago squeaked by without a hit, even though 15 major storms — eight hurricanes, six tropical storms and a tropical depression — traveled through the Central North Pacific region in 2015, according to the National Weather Service.
There were five recorded storm threats to Hawaii in 2014. Scientists say the abnormal activity this year is due in part to the strong El Nino event.
