Heavy rains, thunder and lightning brought on by a dissipating Tropical Storm Fausto might have passed by Hawaii Island, but there’s likely more rain in store, according to the National Weather Service.
Heavy rains, thunder and lightning brought on by a dissipating Tropical Storm Fausto might have passed by Hawaii Island, but there’s likely more rain in store, according to the National Weather Service.
“It’s already west of us now,” Kevin Kodama, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Honolulu, said of Fausto. “It was mostly responsible for the rains we had on Sunday, and the high humidity we had over the weekend. The bulk of it has already passed us by.”
Kodama said the Big Island can expect more rain beginning late Saturday and continuing into Monday because of another tropical disturbance caused by a low pressure trough heading toward the Hawaiian Islands.
“It will be like a repeat of what happened with the remnants of Fausto — a bump in humidity and enhanced rainfall for the weekend. The Relay for Life might be a little wet,” he said.
This weekend’s high moisture content contributed to the lightning storms experienced by East Hawaii residents on Sunday night, he added.
“The remnants of Fausto pushed the moisture content up and made things unstable,” he said. “Along with the jet stream in the upper levels, it helped to create a lot of instability, and that created good conditions for vigorous thunderstorms and a lot of lightning,” he said.
No major damage was reported through the weekend as a result of the storm, according to county Director of Civil Defense Darryl Oliveira.
“The only thing we heard was from Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and they apparently took a lightning strike up at the observatory,” he said. “It affected some of their electronics.”
One resident in Kaumana reported Sunday that a stream was filling up and about to flood, but it turned out it was a culvert that was plugged, and once they removed some of the grass and leaves, it drained without incident, Oliveira said.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.