After a particularly wet dry season, Hawaii is now entering a particularly dry wet season.
From May through September the islands overall experienced "one of the wettest dry seasons in the last 30 years," said Kevin Kodama, a hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "It’s been a long time since we’ve been this green heading into the wet season."
Despite dry conditions from late August to early September, monthly rainfall records fell in 16 sites around the islands, and Waimanalo broke a July rainfall record that had stood since 1908.
But the rainy season that typically runs from October through April should be drier than normal because of weak El Nino conditions that are expected to develop toward the end of the year.
The result should be below-average rainfall through the spring, leading to the possibility of continued drought conditions for parts of Maui County. Upcountry Maui remains under a 10 percent voluntary cutback on water use and West Molokai is under a 20 percent mandatory reduction.
But the forecast of a drier rainy season should not be as bad as two-year spans in 2009 and 2010, and 1997 and 1998, when Hawaii farmers and ranchers were hit particularly hard by drought, Kodama said.
Hawaii island is heading into the rainy season without any drought areas for the first time in eight years. And, overall, "pasture conditions are in really good shape" around the state, Kodama said.
Even Diamond Head is unusually green for this time of year, he said.
But throughout the next several months, farmers and ranchers will be keeping an eye out for welcomed rain during a particularly dry rainy season, Kodama said.
The rest of the year should see a transition to a "weak, or leaking, El Nino" condition that will still deliver rains, he said. "It’s not going to completely shut off the pipe," he said.
Even with expectations of a drier than normal rainy season, forecasters warned people to be alert for flash floods, lightning strikes and the need to exercise caution in storm and flood conditions.
