Unseasonably dry weather marked most of January and February, but March — historically the rainiest month in Hilo — has been delivering the wetter, colder winter weather East Hawaii residents have come to expect. ADVERTISING Unseasonably dry weather marked most
Unseasonably dry weather marked most of January and February, but March — historically the rainiest month in Hilo — has been delivering the wetter, colder winter weather East Hawaii residents have come to expect.
As of 1 p.m. Sunday, March was even wetter than usual, with 6.9 inches having fallen this month at Hilo International Airport. That’s more than twice the norm of 3.26 inches for the period, and brings the year-to-date rainfall total to 14.99 inches. That’s still seven-plus inches less than the norm of 22.08 inches, mostly due to a record 23 days without measurable rainfall from late January into February.
The mercury was at 71 degrees early Saturday and Sunday mornings in Kailua-Kona. Calling that a cold snap might draw a derisive laugh from a native of, say, Bangor, Maine, where it was a bone-chilling 19 degrees at 9 p.m. Sunday.
“Northerly winds are bringing this sort of dry, stable air over most of the state. The only exception is on the Big Island where there is a little bit more moisture overhead,” Matt Foster, a forecaster at the National Weather Service in Honolulu, said Sunday.
The five-day forecast on the NWS website calls for warmer days, in the mid- to upper-70s for the week, starting today, but the cool nights are forecast to continue.
The wind reading at Kona International Airport at 5 p.m. Sunday was 17 mph from the north.
“The wind should be backing off but it’s still going to be cool, at least through the middle of the week, anyway,” Foster said.
One Hilo woman wrote on Facebook it was so cold “every female I have seen today has felt the need to combine some weird … animal print yoga pant with over the top snow fleece boots.”
Showers are also likely to continue in for most of the week, according to the forecast.
Kona airport received about 0.02 inches of rain Saturday and another 0.04 inches by 2 p.m. Sunday. A Captain Cook resident wrote on Facebook that it was “pounding rain.”
Hilo received 1.06 inches Saturday and another 0.37 inches as of 8 a.m. Sunday. Locations elsewhere around the island also reported precipitation, with Hawi registering 0.82 inches on Saturday.
Foster said there may be a brief reprieve from the rain on Tuesday, “but it’ll go right back over us.”
“It’s sort of weird,” he said. “There’s this big band of moisture that’s been just to the south of the Big Island. It’ll kind of move off us, temporarily, on Tuesday. Then, it’ll move right back over the top of us through almost to the end of the week.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
