September is the final month of the dry season for most of Hawaii — and after August’s deluge caused by the passage of Hurricane Hone south of the Big Island, rainfall totals fell back to earth.
Particularly dry were areas along the Kona-Kohala Coast. Puuanahulu, in North Kona, received just 0.22 inch, 9% of its September norm. Waikoloa was even drier, with just 0.1 inch, 10% of its average for the month. And Pohakuloa West’s gauge measured just 0.15 inch, also a tenth of its normal September, its lowest September total since 2008.
“If it wasn’t for the tropical cyclone in August, I think the drought would be pretty bad on the Big Island,” Kevin Kodama, senior service hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Honolulu, said Friday. “And it’s already starting to dry out again — in some places, anyway. Maybe not so much in Kona, but up in South Kohala and some interior areas, such as the Pohakuloa region are drying out again.
“It’s unfortunate you had to have all the impacts from (Hone) — the power outages, the wind damage, the flooding, too much of a good thing at one time down in Waiohinu. But that’s how drought relief occurs, sometimes.”
Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport in Keahole got almost twice its usual September rainfall, but that still amounted to just under an inch.
The Kona coffee belt experiences its wet season in the summer, and its four official gauges, as well as two Ka‘u coffee region gauges, got their fair share of rainfall last month.
Waiaha registered 9.9 inches, almost twice its norm, while Kainaliu measured 8.85 inches, Kealakekua 6.94 inches and Honaunau 6.5 inches.
“Most of that all came in one day,” Kodama said, referring to a low-level trough that fueled heavy rainfall on Sept. 17 along the Kona slopes.
Bill Myers, CEO of Heavenly Hawaiian Coffee Farm in Holualoa, said the Kona coffee crop is still being influenced by heavier rainfall months ago.
“Early in the season when we were going through the flowering, we had pretty much continuous rainfall,” Myers said. “We didn’t get any extended dry snap during the early months of the season. What that meant was we got a lot of very small flowers. We got a lot of them, but they were small. We’re about to see the results of that.
“The small flowers have led to very small harvests — a lot of them but smaller than usual harvests. In the end, what that means is that we are going to have about 20% less Kona coffee from this harvest than from last year, when we had a glut.”
Myers said there is still unprocessed coffee from last year, as well, although this year’s coffee crop is expected to be of higher quality, if lesser quantity, and prices will remain on the lower side.
“The result will be bad news for Kona coffee farmers but good news for Kona coffee drinkers,” he noted.
The two southeastern Ka‘u gauges, Kapapala and Pahala — both in the Ka‘u coffee region — tallied 6.96 inches and 5.8 inches, respectively, both well above September averages. For Pahala, it was its rainiest September since 2015.
Also experiencing its highest September totals in the past nine years were Hakalau, with 8.48 inches, and Honokaa, with 5.4 inches.
Hilo International Airport recorded 6.75 inches, 78% of its September average. Piihonua, above Hilo, received 12.6 inches, but that was a little more than 2 inches less than its normal September.
Mountain View, in upper Puna, registered 9.85 inches, but that’s 75% of its September average. And in lower Puna, Pahoa had 5.38 inches, slightly less than half its normal September rainfall.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
