HILO — Sarah Strong wasn’t sure she really wanted to grab the kids and their sweaters and head for the hills — but she’s sure glad she did. ADVERTISING HILO — Sarah Strong wasn’t sure she really wanted to grab
HILO — Sarah Strong wasn’t sure she really wanted to grab the kids and their sweaters and head for the hills — but she’s sure glad she did.
The Hilo family was having dinner when news came about the mountain weather. So, the Hilo family piled into the car Thursday night and headed up Saddle Road.
What they found was a winter wonderland.
Tiny hailstones fell so deep that it looked like snow, packed like snow and felt like snow — when the hail hit.
“Everyone was stopping, throwing snowballs,” Strong said.
In places, she said, the hail was 2 feet deep, with bare spots in between.
The family recently traveled to Boston and hoped their two girls would get to see snow for the first time. But it was too warm when they went.
So this was their first wintry experience.
“They loved it,” Strong said. “My little one was getting a little cold.” Three-year-old Kanoe kept asking to change her boots to another pair, try on a different (warmer) sweater. By then, it was time to go.
In the meantime, she and 5-year-old Maile had a blast.
“They were a little hungry and grumpy at the end,” Strong said. “But I was like, ‘Was it worth it?’ and they were like, ‘Yeah, it was worth it!’”
The National Weather Service didn’t have a means of determining hail depth, saying it was indeed hail, not snow. But hail appears to have fallen on Saddle Road, around the 17-mile marker, and in Pahoa.
“We got reports of pea-sized hail on the Big Island,” National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Burke said, mentioning he has seen photos where, along the side of Saddle Road, there were piles of white.
“It definitely wasn’t snow — it was hailstones,” he said, noting hail can occur all the way down to sea level.
Thursday night thunderstorms in East Hawaii were quite strong, he said, and “those storms did produce quite a bit of lightning.”
Talmadge Magno, Hawaii County Civil Defense director, said lightning strikes took out several streetlights in Hilo town, but drivers, appropriately, treated them as four-way stops.
“We thank people for being patient and being safe,” he said. “There were no reports of any accidents or any injuries.”
Hawaii Electric Light Co. said about 1,250 customers lost power in the Hilo for about 1 1/2 hours Thursday night. Most customers’ power was restored by early evening.
“After lightning strikes damaged utility equipment, crews responded immediately and rerouted electricity to restore power to most customers,” company spokeswoman Rhea Lee-Moku said. System redundancies and duplicate critical components provide alternate routes if one component fails or gets damaged.
“This allows us to improve reliability and restore power to customers more quickly until permanent repairs can be made,” she said. Crews are assessing damage and prioritizing repairs to equipment.
Civil Defense warned Friday night that lightning could reoccur and asked people to pay attention to the possibility of flooding.
High moisture content in the air, combined with warm air building in the lower atmosphere and colder air aloft can trigger thunderstorms, Burke said. That’s what happened Thursday night when there was a lack of trade winds that would normally stop the storm formation.
Burke expects sunshine Saturday and Sunday during the daytime with possible rain formation in the afternoons.
Vog also could be heavy this weekend.
“Our winds are going to be pretty light. So, volcanic emissions are going to be affecting the Big Island — and actually we’re seeing it over on Oahu today,” he said Friday afternoon.
It could be Tuesday before the trade winds return and East Hawaii gets relief from the vog.
