Hurricane Hone Has Arrived!

I checked the forecast last night just before I went to bed; it said Hurricane Hone would make its closest approach around midnight. When I got up this morning things did not look that bad. The wind was not much stronger than a normal windy morning; no new trees had gone down on the Surety property that I could see from my bedroom. It was drizzling but there was no downpour. 

A normal breeze at 11 minutes after sunrise.

Light drizzle as I head to Motek Bakery.

So I got ready & headed to Motek Bakery for breakfast. They were closed! And so was L & L Barbecue, Pomaikaʻi Café, and King's View Café. Which meant the power went out last night & I wasn't aware of it. Oh well, one of the downsides of having solar panels with a battery back-up. When David sent out the Bread Lovers email on Friday night he did say, "Assuming that it is not too crazy outside and that we have electricity, Motek will open as planned." 

The Uncle Yosef Breakfast Special that I missed. (Photo from David)

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) showed this at about 2 pm this afternoon. The graphic showing the 3 tropical cyclones gives a general idea of what's happening. Looking at the radar, however, shows the reality of the spread of the cloud cover that is coming our way. The last photo by NOAA is a colorized view of rain that Hone contains.

White line on right is eastern boundary of CPHC.

Red area has higher rain potential.

As seen above, Hurricane Hone has passed Hawaiʻi Island & is about 175 miles westerly of Kailua-Kona & about 160 miles south-southwesterly of Honolulu. It moving westerly at about 13 mph. Its winds are currently at about 75 mph but it is forecast to weaken over the next few days, becoming a tropical storm by early tomorrow morning.

 

The weather report on the late night news reported that there was much more rainfall in some areas than the 6 to 10 inches that was forecast; none of these areas are close to or upslope of me. Recorded wind speeds were also much higher than originally forecast. The 3 shown for Kohala are at the south edge of the North Kohala district that I live in or in the South Kohala district. The closest one is about 12 miles south of me; winds here were no where near those recorded.

In other news, Hurricane Gilma is still headed our way. It is a little over 1300 miles easterly of Hilo & moving westerly at about 9 mph. It is expected to enter the central Pacific basin on Tuesday morning. Although Gilma's winds have diminished to about 105 mph, it is still expected to maintain hurricane strength winds as it enters the central Pacific basin.

That disorganized low pressure system that is about 950 miles west-southwest of Baja California became Tropical Storm Hector last night.It is moving westerly at about 12 mph & will likely enter the central Pacific basin on Thursday. Meteorologists will be watching closely to see what it does as it makes its way towards Hawaiʻi.

 

In the evening, when I went to take a shower, I noticed that the neighbor's lights were on! I checked the Tesla app & found that the power had come back on about a half hour earlier. The battery had been powering the house from 3:07 am until 7:27 pm; it had been drawn down to about 65%. It's comforting to know that just prior to this it had been noting that it had enough capacity to provide power for at least another 24 hours. If you look closely at the graph below at the battery charge level you can see where the grid went down & the battery started providing power for the house. Then you can see when the grid came back on & started recharging the battery; it is doing that since the Storm Alert is still in effect.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Penny & Corinna! A me ka hele hope Curtis! Because of preparing for Hurricane Hone, cleaning up along the back fenceline, & attaching notes on what to replace each window with before the contractor came to take measurements, I forgot to mail his birthday card. So he's getting this later this week.