Despite a particularly rainy December, rainfall totals on the Big Island were close to baseline levels in 2016.
“Overall, it was just less extreme (than 2015),” said hydrologist Kevin Kodama of the National Weather Service. “That was the expectation going in, that we’d have near to above-average rainfall.”
2015 was marked by drought throughout the state. It also was the busiest hurricane season on record in the Central Pacific basin, with 15 tropical cyclones forming.
The El Nino weather pattern that formed in 2015 caused what forecasters at the time called “the wettest dry season in 30 years.”
2016 also began as a dry year thanks to El Nino.
“That was part of the mature phase of a strong El Nino, and then the El Nino dissipated,” Kodama said.
Kodama indicated there was still some drought in the South Kohala area. Waikoloa Village, for example, received just 12.91 inches of rain, the lowest year-to-date tally for the island.
In the leeward areas where it did rain, weather was “not too bad in terms of flooding,” Kodama said.
“It was a good, soaking rain … the word I’m getting is the farmers really liked it.”
“Some of the ranchers were saying there was no runoff, and it all soaked down,” he said. “It’s been good for regrowth … they always want that follow-up rainfall on that side.”
In East Hawaii, flash flooding remained a concern.
Throughout the island, the rain gauge at Saddle Road Quarry, located in the Kaumana area, received 344.61 inches of rain, the third-highest total in the state and 245 percent higher than the average for that site.
In December alone, the gauge recorded 51.33 inches of rain, a 400 percent increase over last year. On Dec. 18, it recorded 9.7 inches. Saddle Road Quarry recorded more than an inch of rain on 16 days in December.
Statewide, December was more rainy than usual because a weak La Nina pattern set in. All but three rain gauges on Hawaii Island recorded above-average rainfall.
Gauges in Piihonua, Waiakea Uka, Mountain View, Glenwood and Pahoa all recorded more than 20 inches of rain last month, as did Hilo International Airport.
Pahoa and Pahala had record-breaking Decembers, measuring 26.03 inches and 15.15 inches of rain, respectively.
Piihonua had 204.76 inches of rain last year, as compared to 216.35 inches in 2015, for the second-highest islandwide total.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
