Just as an aside as it's been mentioned in the thread:
"Myth busted: Maunakea, Mauna Loa do not protect Big Island from tropical cyclones"
"“As a result of this long absence of hurricane impacts, a number of myths have arisen such as ‘the volcanoes protect us,’ ‘only Kaua‘i gets hit’ or ‘there is no Hawaiian word for hurricane,'” says the research paper: “Hurricane with a History: Hawaiian Newspapers Illuminate an 1871 Storm.” It was co-written by Steven Businger, a professor of meteorology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences.
The authors said if a similar storm of the same intensity were to happen today, the destruction would be far greater.
But maybe that hurricane was an aberration. Is it possible that the myth is right? That the two monoliths rising out of the middle of the Pacific Ocean do protect the island from tropical cyclones?
“No,” said John Bravender, the warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service forecast office in Honolulu. “The terrain does not protect us.”
But while the mountains don’t stop the island from being struck by tropical cyclones, storms are affected by Hawai‘i’s terrain once they pass over land — just like their Atlantic counterparts."
https://bigislandnow.com/2023/07/18/myth...-cyclones/
"Myth busted: Maunakea, Mauna Loa do not protect Big Island from tropical cyclones"
"“As a result of this long absence of hurricane impacts, a number of myths have arisen such as ‘the volcanoes protect us,’ ‘only Kaua‘i gets hit’ or ‘there is no Hawaiian word for hurricane,'” says the research paper: “Hurricane with a History: Hawaiian Newspapers Illuminate an 1871 Storm.” It was co-written by Steven Businger, a professor of meteorology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences.
The authors said if a similar storm of the same intensity were to happen today, the destruction would be far greater.
But maybe that hurricane was an aberration. Is it possible that the myth is right? That the two monoliths rising out of the middle of the Pacific Ocean do protect the island from tropical cyclones?
“No,” said John Bravender, the warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service forecast office in Honolulu. “The terrain does not protect us.”
But while the mountains don’t stop the island from being struck by tropical cyclones, storms are affected by Hawai‘i’s terrain once they pass over land — just like their Atlantic counterparts."
https://bigislandnow.com/2023/07/18/myth...-cyclones/