Forecasters are predicting a break from the heavy rains that have drenched much of East Hawaii over the past month or so.
According to the National Weather Service, Hilo International Airport recorded 26.82 inches of rain in February. That’s more than two-and-a-half times the normal February rainfall of 10.22 inches at the airport.
March also started off rainy, with 2.3 inches falling in the first two days of the month.
Joe Clark, a meteorologist for NWS in Honolulu, said Friday the rain is the result of a low-pressure system that’s been sitting over the state.
“It’s not the same one that brought all the rain last week, but there is a heavy low sitting over us right now,” Clark said. “It’s been really windy this past month at times, too.”
The intense rain followed a prolonged dry spell, with Hilo’s airport receiving just 2.06 inches in January after a December total of 7.48 inches, most of which fell in the earlier part of the month.
“That was such an incredibly dry period,” Clark said. “It’s very unusual for it to be that dry for that long. Even when it’s really dry over the summer, we still get trade-wind showers over the terrain. But that period in December and January, there were a whole lot of days where we got absolutely nothing, anywhere.”
The low-pressure systems bringing the rain also brought snow to the summits of Maunakea and Mauna Loa.
“There’s so much snow up on the mountain,” said Ryan Lyman, meteorologist for the University of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea Weather Center, on Friday. “It was really windy earlier in the week, so there were blizzard conditions with really large snowdrifts.”
The snow cap extended farther than usual toward the base of the mountain from the summit.
“It happens every three, or four or five years. It was below Hale Pohaku (Thursday) morning,” Lyman said.
Lyman said the lifting of the low-pressure system means that further heavy snows on the mauna are unlikely, although he said with the cold temperatures, there could be snow atop the Big Island’s two highest peaks for some time to come.
With the wintry weather has come some record overnight lows in Hilo — 65 degrees on both Wednesday and Thursday might. And even though those are records for March 1 and 2, it was colder in mid-February, with record-low temperatures of 60 degrees on Feb. 14 and Feb. 15.
The forecast for Monday is mostly sunny with some scattered showers, and mostly clear on Monday night.
Isolated showers are in the forecast for the middle of the week, according to the NWS. Daytime high temperatures should be in the mid- to upper-70s, with overnight lows in the mid-60s.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
