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| Snow on the ground at an elevation of only 6,200 feet in Maui, Hawaii last weekend. |
Warm sunshine, pleasant tropical breezes gently swaying the palm trees, sandy beaches, the views of Waikiki. What's not to love?
Lately, enough. Apparently, the weather in Hawaii in recent days, months and the past year hasn't been going according to script.
Meteorology seems to be conspiring to ruin Hawaii's reputation as the ultimate place of lovely weather.
KONA STORM SLASHES RECORDS
This past weekend was the piece de resistance. Arguably the most intenst Kona storm on record caused, well, some incredible weather records to fall in Hawaii. The records included snow, bone-chilling code and incredible wind speeds.
Kona storms in Hawaii are winter storms that approach from the northwest. The jet stream is much further south in the winter than in the summer. The types of dips in the jet stream that cause winter storms in places like Vermont and the rest of the mid-latitudes sometimes come far enough south to barely brush the Hawaiian Islands.
This time, a cold upper level low came down from the North Pacific and came much closer than normal to Hawaii than most Kona storms. This one was also particularly strong. (Video of the snow, waves and wind are at the bottom of this post.)
The result was some decidedly un-Hawaiian weather. The wind atop Mauna Kea volcano gusted to 191 mph, which is probably the highest wind gust on record in Hawaii. Sustained winds up there were 125 mph.
There's no way to prove that this was the highest wind on record for Hawaii, because they don't really keep track of such things. But longtime observers say that's easily the highest wind they've seen.
The summit of Mauna Kea is at 13.803 elevations, so high winds, blizzards and frigid temperatures are pretty common there in winter. But not like this.
The coldest temperature on record in Hawaii is, or at least was, 12 degrees on the summit of Mauna Kea, on May 17, 1979. It looks like the temperature got down to somewhere between 8 and 11 degrees on Mauna Kea during last weekend's storm, but that reading will have to be verified before they become official.
On Maui, snow fell at an elevation as low as 6,200 feet, the lowest elevation at which snow was seen on record. Snow has been seen atop 10,000 foot Haleakala on Maui, but never this low. People flocked to the Polipoli State Park in Maui last weekend so they could say they played in the snow in Hawaii.
A second storm today is bringing more snow to Haleakala on Maui and the high volcano peaks on the Big Island of Hawaii, but the snow won't get to as low an elevation as it did a few days ago.
OTHER RECORDS
In other Hawaiian extremes, a storm that hit the state last April was just in the past couple of days verified as producing a United States record for the most rain in a 24 hour period.
In the 24 hours ending at 12:45 p.m. April 15, 2018, a total of 49.69 inches fell on Waipa Gardens, Hawaii. That breaks the previous national record of 43 inches in 24 hours, set on July 25-26, 1979 in Alvin, Texas.
For perspective, there have only been three entire years in Burlington, Vermont on record that had more rain than what fell in 24 hours on that April day last year in Hawaii.
Also, last August, Hurricane Lane dumped 52 inches of rain on one town in Hawaii. That's the second highest rainfall of any hurricane or tropical storm in known United States history. Only the Texas Hurricane Harvey in 2017 poured more rain down.
Here's some videos:
A snowy drive in Maui, Hawaii, this past Sunday:
Video of high waves from the storm on Oahu:
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