In this WeatherWhys® segment, AccuWeather's Bernie Rayno explains what happens when a Kona Low hits the Hawaiian Islands.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Alright, it's time for our weather wise segment where we take something complicated and make
00:04 it easy to understand.
00:05 And what are we talking about today?
00:07 A Kona low.
00:09 Well that deals with Hawaiian.
00:11 What in the world is a Kona low?
00:13 Well it's an upper level low.
00:14 We never trust them by the way.
00:15 Mischief and mayhem.
00:16 They call it a Kona low because of where it sets up.
00:19 It typically sets up to the north and also northwest of the Hawaiian islands.
00:24 And when that happens, you get winds that are coming in from the west southwest.
00:31 Typically you get winds from the east northeast.
00:33 That's a comfortable flow floor much of Hawaii.
00:36 But the word Kona means leeward.
00:39 So you're getting stronger winds now on the leeward side out of the west southwest.
00:43 And that's where it becomes very unsettled in Hawaii with these systems.
00:47 You get increasing humidity because you're pulling in tropical air from the north.
00:52 And you get showers and thunderstorms.
00:53 You also can get heavy snow into the volcanoes up at around 12, 13,000 feet on the big island.
00:59 Which is occurring now because you know what we have?
01:02 An upper level low or a Kona low.
01:03 And you can even see, look at the tropical moisture heading right toward the big island.
01:08 That's why we're getting some showers and thunderstorms here with that upper level low.
01:12 However, what's going to be happening is, is this system, this upper low is going to
01:16 be weakening.
01:17 Watch how it weakens as we get into Saturday and Sunday.
01:19 How do we know it weakens?
01:21 There's no more red, yellow and orange.
01:22 Just some, well, just a little bit of orange.
01:24 But see how it kind of fades away?
01:26 So that's good news because this is the way you can get flash flooding in Hawaii and some
01:31 locally heavy rain.
01:32 But this system is pretty much gone by the time we get into Sunday.
01:36 So again, there'll be some showers and thunderstorms through this string of pearls at least through
01:40 tonight and tomorrow.
01:41 But watch what happens Saturday, Sunday, Monday, not much.
01:45 It's the Kona low, the upper low that's weakening.
01:49 And now you know.
01:50 Stay with us.
01:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]