Hilo 50 year Rain Chart

[Cagary]

When Rainfall Falls dried up, some of us were wondering about historical droughts around Hilo. I put together a chart of the last 50 years ('63 through '12) using data from the weather website Wunderground.

Looks like there was quite a drought starting in the mid 60's that didn't end until the early 70's. Was anyone in Hilo at the time?

The chart shows we are relatively dry over the last 3 years, but not as bad as back about 40 years ago.

The "years" at the bottom of the chart a squeezed together pretty badly. Hope you can make them out.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/Ga...078a23.jpg

[Royall]

Thanks for taking the time to compile the chart! Interesting to see. I moved here in 2005 and was told on one rainy day that we were in a drought then and should get used to the rain!!

Royall

Hale O Na Mea Pa`ani

[TomK]

Really interesting, Cagary, thank you! I've just spent a little time myself playing around with Wunderground and unfortunately I think the data for the 60s are incorrect. Not sure if it's Wunderground or the data they are using, but I've found some strange things. For instance, if you look at the data for December 7 1967, a record amount of rain fell that day (just for that day, not an overall record) - 3.72 inches. However, on the very same output, Wunderground says only 1.18 inches fell that day.

I've found other examples of this for many dates in the 1960s so think they have a problem for those years, and they all seem to be under-reading which would explain the lower recorded rainfall amounts in the 60s. For later records (e.g., record rainfalls in the 2000s) the problem doesn't seem to exist.

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

[Cagary]

quote:

---

Originally posted by TomK

Really interesting, Cagary, thank you! I've just spent a little time myself playing around with Wunderground and unfortunately I think the data for the 60s are incorrect. Not sure if it's Wunderground or the data they are using, but I've found some strange things. For instance, if you look at the data for December 7 1967, a record amount of rain fell that day (just for that day, not an overall record) - 3.72 inches. However, on the very same output, Wunderground says only 1.18 inches fell that day.

I've found other examples of this for many dates in the 1960s so think they have a problem for those years, and they all seem to be under-reading which would explain the lower recorded rainfall amounts in the 60s. For later records (e.g., record rainfalls in the 2000s) the problem doesn't seem to exist.

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

---

Tom,

I know what you mean by the 60's data being a little messed up. All I could do is work with the data the was on the site. Maybe there's a better source for data.

[TomK]

Cagary - I'm looking, haven't found anything yet, but thanks again for putting this together!

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

[TomK]

http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bit...sequence=1

Table 2 includes total annual rainfall for many years but haven't checked to see if the rainguage/s is the same as used by Wunderground.

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

[Obie]

You can find everything here:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?hihilo

Go down to Quantity,monthly totals.

[Cagary]

Tom,

The site you found does contradict the wunderground data.

The 60's don't appear to have had any drought unless you call 71.40 inches in '65 a "drought". All the other years are over !00 inches.(Even going back to 1954. In '53 only 89.64 inches fell.)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/Ga...d5dbb6.jpg

[Cagary]

quote:

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Originally posted by Obie

You can find everything here:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?hihilo

Go down to Quantity,monthly totals.

---

Obie,


The totals on the site you found seem to correspond with the site Tom found. I've got to remake my chart!

[Midnight Rambler]

Yes, there's definitely something wrong with the 1965-1972 data. If you go to Obie's link, go to the bottom on the lefthand side to "custom monthly listing", it shows that those years were fairly typical, with 100-150 inches. The Wunderground numbers are quite a bit different through 1976, then after that they seem to be the same.

There were major droughts in the 1950's and 1920's. There was a fire in 1926 that burned 4,000 acres in Panaewa; it was re-seeded by air, which is why there is melochia (the tree with heart-shaped leaves and little pink flowers that's blooming now) all over the place.