A weakening Tropical Depression Kilo kept the islands under a flash flood watch on Saturday, with a mass of saturated air to the northeast of the storm spreading across the lower archipelago. A still highly unpredictable system has the potential to bring hurricane conditions to the state by next weekend.
A weakening Tropical Depression Kilo kept the islands under a flash flood watch on Saturday, with a mass of saturated air to the northeast of the storm spreading across the lower archipelago. A still highly unpredictable system has the potential to bring hurricane conditions to the state by next weekend.
Developing areas of heavy rainfall prompted a flood advisory Saturday afternoon for the northern portion of the island from Captain Cook to Hawi and east to Paauilo. The National Weather Service warned the moisture could interact with local terrain and produce intense, slow-moving downpours through Monday, with 2 to 4 inches of rain possible in some areas over the weekend.
That rainfall was beginning to register on the slopes of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea above 6,000 feet Saturday, NWS meteorologist Chris Brenchley said.
Kilo was located 405 miles south-southwest of the Big Island with 30 mph winds on Saturday evening. The storm’s failure to organize had forecasters struggling with the intensity forecast, but still predicting Kilo will restrengthen into a tropical storm in the next day or two. A higher ocean heat content and weaker sheer after Monday is predicted to allow Kilo to regenerate into a Category 1 hurricane by mid-week as the storm hooks back from the southwest toward the island chain.
A wider, slower turn to the northwest will likely keep the center to the southwest of Kauai until next weekend, according to the latest track from the weather service. But Kilo is a wild card. How far the storm turns toward the islands is still highly uncertain, and should be monitored closely by the public, Brenchley said. There’s nothing in the conditions in its path to indicate it will weaken beyond Thursday, which is as far as the forecast reaches and the point where meteorologists believe Kilo will have strengthened to an 85 mph hurricane.
“Beyond day five still looks favorable for more strengthening,” Brenchley said. “That’s a long way out and a lot can change, which is why we don’t forecast beyond five days. But the water is warm and there’s not much sheer.”
Kilo was trucking west at 15 mph on Saturday, and its forward motion is expected to slow late Monday as a weakness in a high pressure ridge allows the storm to swing more toward the islands. By mid-week, Kilo is expected to be a tropical storm or low-end hurricane muddling slowly northeast in the general direction of Kauai with weak steering currents.
The cyclone has had trouble organizing even though it is in an area of 84-degree water and low wind shear. Forecasters caution that an extended forecast on the system’s strength is irrelevant if the storm continues its failure to organize and dissipates in the short term. Kilo was set to experience 12 to 17 mph northwesterly sheer from Saturday through Monday.
A thousand miles west of Kilo, forecasters are also tracking Tropical Depression Loki, which packed 35 mph winds and was set to gradually intensify this coming week. That system is weaving its way roughly north and is set to pass through the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands near the Pearl and Hermes Atoll.