Hurricane season 2026

[MyManao]

What Durgin says..

I have yet to be impressed with Durgin's powers of deduction.. and will add..

Considering that the strongest cyclonic system to hit Hawaii island in 'recorded history' (a loosely used term to mean white man’s history) was Iselle, which wasn’t even a hurricane, or if it was was just barely (even though the Albizia made it seem otherwise) and its center didn’t make landfall other than to graze the southern tip of the island and then immediately go offshore again, and through all that had only a glancing interaction with our Maunas, any talk of how hurricane force winds interact with our mountains is speculative. And, without more definitive data* all we can do is continue to speculate..

While we are, speculating, here’s a study of what may very well have been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, storm to actually make landfall here in a very, very long time. It certainly exceeded Iselle..

From: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journa...0333.1.xml

Hurricane with a History: Hawaiian Newspapers Illuminate an 1871 Storm

Whose Abstract reads..

High literacy rates among Native Hawaiians in the nineteenth century and publication of more than 100 Hawaiian-language newspapers from 1834 to 1948 produced the largest archive of indigenous writing in the Western Hemisphere. These newspapers extend our knowledge of historical environmental events and natural disasters back into the early nineteenth century and deeper into precontact times. Articles reporting observations of meteorological events allowed the authors to reconstruct the track and intensity of an 1871 hurricane that brought devastation to the islands of Hawaii and Maui and to discern historical patterns of droughts and floods in Hawaii. These findings illustrate the value of Hawaiian-language newspapers as resources for science research and science education.

This is a great addition to the consideration of the history of hurricanes here. With serious estimates that the storm came through the island, along the Hamakua coast, over the Waimea saddle, and onwards through the Maui roads at Cat 2 strength. The amount of damage the same would wreak today is considerable. Here’s a map of the estimated path..



It certainly is something for those that think our Maunas offer unchallengeable protection from sever weather systems to chew on. Although without the suite of remote datasets we have today there’s no telling how that system got to the Hamakua coast. Whether it was a direct hit from out of the east, or a glancing blow that would have done in Hilo except for the steering influence our Mauna’s presence add to the forces at play, is anybody’s guess.

I have always pointed out that our Maunas exert a considerable amount of influence, especially when compared to the open ocean, in that cyclonic systems tend to be, at least in part, steered by their presence. Of course there’s other factors, but they too often hinge on the presence of the island. It just plainly cannot help but be. The islands are here, they affect the world around them. And now, with remote sensing, we’re able to understand more as each system exhibits some amount of behavior commiserate with the NWS’ statement I quoted earlier in Kiko’s campaign..

https://punaweb.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=23639&pid=357747#pid357747

Where I highlight their statement..

Historically, cyclones approaching the Big Island from the east can slow and deflect northward as the island terrain disrupts the low-level flow and alters the steering currents.

Seriously, with our mountains standing nearly 14,000 feet tall, our volcanic peaks (Our "Magic Mountains" as PaulW called them) act as physical barriers that disrupt the low-level circulation and structure of a tropical cyclone. Initially this changes the symmetry of a storm, which as it gets closer can cause it to weaken, and, break up as it moves westward towards the other islands. Additionally, as a storm's moist air is forced up the mountain slopes, it cools and condenses, leading to extreme rainfall, even if the storm's center never makes landfall. And, sure, it’s easy to imagine specific instances where the local winds increase. But to think the land masses do not have a chilling effect on a system as a whole is just silly. And, as I said before, how the wind will actually behave in any given situation is purely speculative when we consider how little historical data we have to speculate with. Modelers can create all kinds of models, but even the professionals with all those spaghetti lines for the most part are playing pin the tail on the donkey for anything other than the first so many hours of any predictive period.

As to storms that pass to our south and then, after passing the island turn to the north, we have seen this more than a few times. And, I would contend that more than saying the Maunas cause this, they prevented the storms from turning to the north as long as they are under their influence, and then after they passed they were free to follow that trend. But, regardless, to say one way or another as if one knows better than another is pure folly. We’re all no better than speculating. And, OMG, ain’t it fun!?!

BTW, I don’t like hurricanes, the stress of the waiting and uncertainty, and the potential danger all conspire to cause me to take them seriously, as I would caution anyone to do.


* How many examples of something would it take for our understanding to be “definitive”? Way more than once, or twice. So even with a direct hit, just one, which we haven’t had in our time, we’d still be playing a guessing game. Not as much guessing as we are now, but still..