NOAA: Hawaii could see more rainfall than average this wet season

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Hawaii will likely see more rainfall than average during the wet season starting this year, the National Weather Service in Honolulu said.
NWS officials on Thursday announced their wet season rainfall outlook, which runs from October through April.
Kevin Kodama, senior service hydrologist for NWS Honolulu, said the wetter conditions are due in part by the La Nina weather pattern, which is marked by cooler-than-average ocean temperatures.
A weak La Nina is favored to emerge in the tropical Pacific by the end of November and expected to persist through spring, Kodama said. As a result, the state could see wetter-than-average conditions starting from December through April, with November being a transition month.
“With La Nina in place, the rainfall distribution can be affected by the strength of the La Nina. If you have a moderate to strong La Nina event, then there’s a higher chance or probability of more trade wind days than usual during the wet season and so that will tend to focus rainfall more on the east-facing Windward slopes,” Kodama said.
“When you have a weaker La Nina event, it can have more low pressure systems around the state, more kona lows for instance. That’ll produce more Leeward rainfall.”
Kodama said models show enhanced Windward and Leeward rainfall, which could eliminate drought conditions by the end of the wet season. He added that the enhanced rainfall could reduce dry forage or growth of vegetation, decreasing the chance of wildfires.
There’s also a lower probability of giant surf events, he said.
This comes after an already unusually wet dry season in Hawaii.
Kodama said this was the ninth wettest dry season in the last 30 years, pointing to the kona low weather system that drenched the west end of the state back in May. It was the latest kona low in at least 20 years, producing flooding on roadways, landslides and elevated stream levels.
“That wasn’t quite what I was expecting in terms of the statistics, but it is what it is,” Kodama said. “We had some curveballs thrown at us in terms of rainfall. But we still ended up with significant dryness in parts of the state.”
Kodama said drought conditions eventually kicked in, which led to a significant uptick in wildfires. But in late August, Hurricane Hone also brought heavy rains and powerful winds to the state.
This story will be updated.
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