East Hawaii residents have been feeling the chill this week, but rain clouds are serving to keep temperatures higher than they might be. ADVERTISING East Hawaii residents have been feeling the chill this week, but rain clouds are serving to
East Hawaii residents have been feeling the chill this week, but rain clouds are serving to keep temperatures higher than they might be.
Current temps are chilly, but they’re still a good 10 degrees or more warmer than the record lows set in the past. A temperature gauge at Hilo Airport recorded a record low of 57 degrees on March 12, 1995, compared with a low of 67 degrees Thursday, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Chevy Chevalier.
“During that time, when we had the stiff northerly winds (the last three or four days), Hilo and the Big Island were still getting some rain, and the clouds actually hold in the heat. On Oahu and in Lihue, both set record lows this week, a couple times, probably because they were cloud free,” he said. “The rain didn’t allow us to break the record low in Hilo.”
On Tuesday, Honolulu and Lihue, Maui, recorded record lows of 58 degrees and 57 degrees, respectively. In Hilo, the average temperature was 71 degrees, with a high of 76 and a low of 65 degrees.
Hilo’s coldest day this month came on a particularly windy day, March 5, when the low fell to 64 degrees, with average wind speeds of 8.2 mph.
The coldest day of the year, however, came on Jan. 4, when the low dropped to 59 degrees.
Today’s record low for Hilo was 56 degrees, set in 1954. The high was 85 degrees, set in 1997. The National Weather Service forecast for today anticipated isolated showers and a high of 77 degrees, with a low of 63 degrees in the evening.
The recent cold snap is primarily because of a storm system far the south of the island, Chevalier said.
“It’s not uncommon this time of year. We’re still in March, in the winter months, meteorologically speaking,” he said. “We’ve had lows diving a little farther to the south, and this last (rain storm) had some high pressure riding behind it, with stiff winds behind it. That blew down a lot of cool air from the north. And it stayed a couple days, so that’s why it was chilly.”
A message posted Friday morning on the Mauna Kea Weather Center website announced that the road to the summit of the mountain remained closed since Monday because of “heavy accumulations of snow and ice on all summit roads.”
“Our snow removal crew worked hard all day yesterday attempting to clear large amounts of snow from summit roads; however, due to continuing snow fall and strong winds, they were unable to make it all the way to the summit,” the message reads.
“The snow removal crew is back again today, Friday, and they are working hard to clear summit roads of snow and ice, but they report very slow progress due to the depth of the snow and the thickness of the ice.”
During the past week, the National Weather Service issued multiple snowstorm and blizzard warnings for summits on the Big Island above 11,000 feet. Conditions atop Mauna Kea have, among other things, delayed the start of construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope.
“We are at the mercy of the weather,” TMT spokeswoman Sandra Dawson told the Tribune-Herald on Monday.
In West Hawaii, where temperatures have been colder than usual, the weather was expected to improve, forecasters said.
After nearly a week of rain and cold weather, infrared satellite Friday morning showed just a few cirrus clouds remaining over the Big Island, as the deep moisture upper-level trough that brought the inclement weather to the leeward side tracks east and away from the island.
Bringing the better weather to West Hawaii is an upper-level ridge moving in from the east. That ridge, according to forecasters, is expected to bring stable conditions over Hawaii that will last into next week.
“It will be more sunny — it should be back to typical weather with the onshore wind flow and cloud buildups during the day and clearing during the night,” said Matt Foster, a National Weather Service Meteorologist based in Honolulu.
The forecast does call for some windy conditions during the weekend fueled by a high-pressure system about 1,000 miles northeast of Kauai. However, the north winds are forecast to be short-lived because the system is expected to slowly shift eastward, Foster said.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaii
tribune-herald.com.
