Still Raining

The Kona Low is still with us; it is slowly moving westward. Maui got dumped on; apparently Kula was the "winner" with 10.74 inches in the 24-hour period ending at 5 p.m. There was a lot of damage in Kihei; they are at the bottom of the southerly flank of Haleakala. Oʻahu is next in line for the storm.

For Hawaiʻi Island, Mayor Roth declared a State of Emergency last night & 3 shelters were opened in Kaʻu District for anyone needing them. The flash flood warnings for Kaʻu & Puna districts went through the entire evening. There were power outages for over 20,000 residents but did not affect North Kohala. The heaviest rainfall for the 24-hour period was at Nene Cabin in Volcano, just outside the national park.

The hazard maps from the Hawaiʻi County website provided a good visual of what parts of the island were impacted. You could also watch it over time as new hazards were identified, older hazards were removed, & the weather system moved westward.

At 7:55 a.m., the storm is still over the island.

There aren't very many stream gages here.

Looking at Hazards identified by 9:04 a.m., while the storm rages on.

Looking at Utility Outages identified by 9:07 a.m.

By 4:49 p.m. the storm had passed, but the damage remained.

 

Here on Oʻahu, I heard rain off & on last night but it was not extremely heavy like it was earlier yesterday. It was lightly drizzling when I woke up. It got heavier over the course of the day & will be continuing in to the evening. At 5 p.m., the area with the highest 24-hour total was Poamoho on the north shore.

Sue made a good call yesterday to cancel the Neighborhood Security Watch walk this morning; it was raining during our walking period. No morning exercise for me today; I made another plain proothie.  

This morning I found that one of The Potential Most Favorite Roommate's plants got blown over by the wind. It is a pomegranate in a pot that is just outside the cat run. And it has a fruit on it! And a flower. I set it back upright.  

Oh, no!

Fortunately the fruit was not damaged.

The flower was not damaged either.

The Roomba had a little trouble getting around this morning. It turns out it had a bunch of hair tangled around the sweeper rollers so it was not moving smoothly. Once I removed all the hair it did fine.

I did have a visit with my periodontist scheduled for just before lunch; he wanted to check how the large pocket in the back where my wisdom tooth used to be was doing. But as I was outside about mid-morning picking up The Potential Most Favorite Roommate's pomegranate tree that was blown over by the wind last night, I got a call from Dr. Ching's office. They wanted me to come in earlier, if possible; so I did. He did not like how it was looking at my last visit; today he did some cutting of my gum, scraping below the gumline, & inserting a antibiotic chip into the pocket. They had done the same on the other side since the pockets did not close up nicely on their own.

As I was leaving the periodontist's, I drove by the mural of Carissa Moore & Duke Kahanamoku; it's about a block from Dr. Ching's office. A month ago when I drove by it was almost done. It has now been finished!

On a sunny day the background will blend in with the sky.

On the way back I stopped at Kokua Market. I needed more cottage cheese; I also found out The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes likes bagels; but they were out of the Essential Baking Company's Take-and-Bake bagels. I picked up some veggies from the deli along with some Shakshuka; I decided I would only do veggies or vegetarian-based entrees from the deli until I have cleaned out the freezer.

I also stopped at Long's to pick up the chlorhexidine mouth rinse & some acetaminophen. I have to hold the mouth rinse in my mouth on the side with the surgery for 30 seconds, twice a day, for a week. I also can't chew or brush on that side for a week.The acetaminophen is for after the local anesthetic wears off; I will be using it as little as possible.

It was later than usual by the time I got home, plus I could not chew on that side any way & my mouth was still numb, so I decided to skip lunch. I made keto-friendly Double Chocolate Cookies instead. I have one more bag of the keto-friendly Chocolate Chip cookie mix, if Kokua doesn't get any more in before I finish baking that last bag I will have to order more on line.  

I settled for dinner at my usual time. I had some Shakshuka and Sauteed Kale & Won Bok. 

Morgan sent out a Mahalo to all the Citizen Forester volunteers as well as a reminder about the upcoming tree ID key training. Francisco also sent out an email about the upcoming potential planting site inventory on Wednesday; we'll be walking the area just mauka of Wai'alae Avenue. He also said there would be a couple people from the National Park Service joining us to see what we do.

The potential planting site inventory area.

The cats stayed indoors today; the sliding glass door has been shut to keep the rain from splashing in. They did not appear to miss access to the soggy, wet cat run.

Keala at 7:30 a.m.; check out the 1st weather photo below at 7:28 a.m. to see what she was missing.

Luna at 7:30 a.m.

Here's the cat run around 11 a.m., in case you were wondering.

 

It wasn't like this continually. But it was like this for enough of the time that they did not want to go out. Here is is again at around 2 p.m. Check out the weather photos below for more on what it looked like at other times of the day.

Shortly after 2 p.m. the wind began to blow from the south. I'm glad I had closed the sliding glass door earlier when the splashing made the rain come in. But now I had to also close the other windows on that side of the house.

It was still fairly foggy up at Kīlauea volcano so I was unable to see what is happening with the activity in Halemaʻumaʻu crater.

At 8:11 a.m.

At 8:11 a.m.

I don't think there was any new snow on Mauna Kea overnight; it did not look like there were mounds of snow on top of the guardrail posts. And there did not seem to be more snow coming down during the day either. I think it was just fog that made it look like it might have been snowing. 

At 8:01 a.m.

At 9:02 a.m.

At 10:03 a.m.

At 3:24 p.m.

At 5:22 p.m.

The Aix weather app forecast thunderstorms in Honolulu along with rain falling at a rate of 0.3 in/hr for the entire day. That may have been true for some part of the island but the Pālolo Valley rain gage, which is the closest one to us, recorded 3.42 inches within the 24-hour period ending at 6 p.m. for an average of only 0.14 in/hr. However by 9 p.m., the rain gage was recording 6.2 in in that 24-hour period or 0.26 in/hr for 24 hours or 0.93 in/hr for that 3-hour period! Hū! For Kapaʻau, Aix also forecast thunderstorms but with rain falling at a rate of 0.4 in/hr for the entire day; Big Island Now forecast showers & isolated thunderstorms with locally heavy rainfall possible & a "near 100%" chance of rain. By about 8 a.m. the Honomū weather station had already collected 1.94 inches or about 0.24 in/hr. It continued raining & by 4:45 p.m. there was an accumulation of 5.81 inches or about 0.35 in/hr. However, at Kahua Ranch there was only a 0.28 inch accumulation by 4 p.m. For Marysville, Aix forecast 0.075 in/hr to 10 am then the rate diminishing to 0.025 in/hr. The I-5 traffic cams showed evidence of precipitation both in the morning as well as the evening.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 7:28 a.m. Pomegranate is down.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 7:59 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 8:02 a.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 8:05 a.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 10:38 a.m., pomegranate still down.

Kaimukī looking southerly while going out to rescue pomegranate.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 10:42 a.m. Pomegranate now upright.

Kaimukī looking northerly at 10:53 a.m.; on my way to periodontist.

Nā Koʻolau at 10:56 a.m., on my way to periodontist.

Kaimukī looking northerly at 1:08 p.m., picking up mouth rinse.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 1:15 p.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 1:38 p.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 2:01 p.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 2:05 p.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 2:06 p.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 2:17 p.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 4:46 p.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 4:48 p.m. HST.

The surf on the north facing shores is a little smaller today; there were some hardy surfers out there today. The south facing shores are experiencing the surge of the storm that has been pushing these rain clouds over us; it was pretty messy. 

Laniakea (N) at 8:07 a.m.; I think there is rain & surf spray on the lens.

Hilo Bay (E) at 8:08 a.m.; foggy.

Waikīkī (S) at 8:09 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 8:11 a.m.

Laniakea (N) at 4:44 p.m.; glad they cleaned things up.

Hilo Bay (E) at 4:43 p.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 4:45 p.m.

Banyans (W) at 4:44 p.m.

There are 2 more cases of COVID caused by the Omicron variant that have been confirmed here. The DOH is investigating 8 more cases that are suspected to be caused by Omicron. The DOH has also been notified that about a dozen residents were attendees at the New York anime convention where the 1st case of Omicron identified had been attending when that person was contagious. 

There have been 90 new cases of COVID-19 reported today bringing the total known cases up to 88,385. There were no new deaths reported today so the number of fatalities remains at 1033; currently there are 1246 cases that are considered active. As of today there have been 2,370,281 doses of vaccine, providing 72% of the State population with full vaccination & 77.6% with at least one dose. There are currently 40 cases that have been hospitalized with 10 in the ICU & 7 on ventilators. The 7-day new case average for the State is 93 with a positivity rate of 1.4%. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 50 with a positivity rate of 1.3%.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Tricia, Susie, & Christina!