Hawaii tornado warning

[Mark Sefried]

Looks like the Honolulu NWS issued a tornado warning today. I don't ever recall seeing a tor warning for Hawaii before that is not from a waterspout moving on shore. The tornado warning was based on radar. There are no reports of anything touching down on SPC's storm reports.

AT 1234 PM HST...RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO 7 MILES SOUTHWEST OF KAUMAKANI...OR 24 MILES WEST OF LIHUE...MOVING TO THE NORTHEAST AT 35 MPH.


The full text can be found here: http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/PHFO/0812132241.wfhw50.html

 

[rdale]

"It came without warning"

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081214/NEWS12/812140379/1352

 

[Dann Cianca]

I've posted some radar images from the storm on my blog:

http://blog.bigskyconvection.com/2008/12/hawaii-tornado-warning.html

 

[Todd Krause]

I don't know when Kauai last had a tornado warning, but the Honolulu office has a nice writeup of the last tornadic storm to hit Kauai in January 2005. See http://www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/pages/events/jan9storms/Jan9_Svr.php

The damage associated with the Hanapepe storm a couple days ago is in the same area as the damage from the January 2005 storm. Amazingly enough, I was on vacation on Kauai Jan 9, and just happened to go to a restaurant in Waimea on Jan 10. The locals insisted they'd had a tornado, but I hear that all the time. But the damage was just a few blocks away, so I went to take a look. It really was tornadic damage!

I see from the NCDC site there have been three Hawaiian tornadoes since that one in Jan 2005 - one on Oahu, one on Lanai, and one on Maui.

Todd

 

[Mike Krzywonski]

Oahu & Kauai have experienced substantial flooding over the past couple days:http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081212/NEWS12/812120372/1352

Prior to the warning, I was watching GRL3 & noticed an embedded cell w/ a hook & meso icon approaching Kauai. I couldn't believe my ears when my weather radio sounded. I believe it was the first tornado warning I've ever heard here.

Here on Oahu, I was only teased w/ rain & the sound of some distant thunder. There was, however, a land spout photographed here on Oahu some years ago:

 

[Jeff Passner]

There was a strong "Kona" low and low-level winds were backed under some speed shear. The sounding shows some instability also. The 500-hPa temp was -8.3C which is not bad; CAPE was about 600 J/KG using 12Z ob. The sounding is very tropical of course, but given the terrain and localized backing of the boundary-layer winds these storms clearly did rotate. It can happen anywhere; it's the conditions that matter, not the location.