(BIVN) – The National Weather Service issued its June rainfall summary this week, reporting there was “typical summer rainfall distribution” across the State of Hawaiʻi, “with windward and mauka areas generally above average and leeward areas below average for the month of June.”
Drought conditions are absent on Hawaiʻi island, as well as the entire state.
“In Hawaii, significant shower activity was limited to windward locations, which is typical of summer,” the U.S. Drought Monitor wrote. “Hawaii’s remaining patches of abnormal dryness (D0), on Maui and the Big Island, respectively, were again unchanged, as much of the Aloha State continues to benefit, hydrologically, from a wet spring.”
The D0 Abnormally Dry conditions on Hawaiʻi island surround Maunakea and include the area of Kawaihae.
In its June rainfall summary, the National Weather Service noted:
June began with a period of wetter-than-normal trade wind weather as a weak surface trough moving in from the southeast brought elevated moisture on the 1st and 2nd. Moderate trade winds focused the heaviest rainfall over windward and mauka areas, while a slight southeast wind component enhanced showers across the Kaʻū and Puna Districts of the Big Island and the south slopes of Haleakalā on Maui. Rainfall totals generally ranged from 3 to 5 inches, with isolated amounts of 7 to 10 inches along the Hāmākua and Kaʻū coasts of the Big Island. Flooding closed a portion of Highway 11 between Kāwā and Honuʻapo in Kaʻū.
A more typical early summer trade wind pattern returned from the 3rd through the 10th, with moderate to locally breezy easterly winds and scattered windward and mauka showers.
The National Weather Service reported “windward coast and upper slope areas, as well as much of the Puna and Kaʻū Districts, fared the best in June, with well above average rainfall in most spots.”
However, rainfall was below average in much of the Kona and Kohala District coast and slopes, as well as the interior higher elevations. “The most notable of these sites were Kaloko-Honokōhau and Kona Airport, with 14% and 5% of their June averages, respectively,” the forecasters wrote.
From the June report:
The USGS site at Saddle Road Quarry had the highest monthly total for the island with 26.82 inches (322% of average), as well as the highest daily total for the island and statewide of 10.00 inches on the 2nd. Eleven sites had their wettest June on record: Hakalau RAWS (since 2004), Honokaʻa Ua Net (since 1991 – missing data in 1996, 1999), Kapāpala Ranch Ua Net (since 1999), Kapāpala RAWS (since 2012), Keaumo RAWS (since 2012), Kealakomo RAWS (since 2010), Nēnē Cabin RAWS (since 2015), Pali 2 RAWS (since 2003), Puʻu Mali RAWS (since 2015), and Pāhala Ua Net (since 1991). Additionally, the Hilo Airport set two daily rainfall records in June: 3.00 inches on the 1st (old record 1.39 inches set in 2015) and 1.99 inches on the 10th (old record 1.17 inches set in 2002).
