Puna Weather
Friday 4th September 2026
Today moderate to breezy easterly trade winds with scattered showers.
Saturday light winds with scattered showers. VOG is possible.
Late Saturday into early Monday light winds and very humid with periods of heavy rain possible. VOG is possible.
Late Monday and Tuesday hot and very humid with moderate to breezy south winds and heavy rain likely. Some flooding is possible.
To our northeast Karina is weakening. The storm is no longer annular as it now has spiral banding and an irregular eye which is filling with clouds and contracting. Karina will pass by to our north as a remnant low and merge with Lowell Monday/Tuesday. As Karina passes by to our north it will interrupt our trade winds making VOG possible.
The combined Lowell/Karina storm will pull deep moisture up from the tropics and over us late Monday and Tuesday. Dew points could approach 80F making for very uncomfortable weather. The south winds could focus rainfall on Kau and Puna, but the deep moisture PWs over 2" mean heavy rain is possible over all of windward Hawaii Island.
After 36 hours it appears the easterly shear impacting Lowell is weakening. The latest frames of the water vapor satellite loop show expansion of upper level outflow towards the east and more uniform convection around a clearing eye. It looks like Lowell may have what it needs to intensify. But of course the storm looks its best now, it's the diurnal maximum (tropical cyclones have a tendency to strengthen during the late night hours). We'll see if the shear abates altogether and Lowell continues to improve its structure when the sun comes up and we enter the diurnal minimum.
The eventual track of Lowell and its risk to Kauai are going to be governed by an upper level trough all models show approaching from the northeast Sunday through Tuesday. The GFS model continues to trend west with this feature and also continues to trend west with Lowell's path. The NHC has also nudged their cone to the west. Kauai is still uncomfortably close, but a direct strike on the island is becoming less likely.
The main thing we'll all be looking for is when does Lowell initiate the turn to the north.
More hurricane hunter flight(s) are on for today.
Looking into the long range, the MJO report from earlier in the week said that the MJO signal could be stalled over the Pacific and it is difficult to isolate given the ongoing El Nino. They credit the MJO which making Lala, Moke and Lowell more likely.
As the Lowell/Karina storm exits to our north some the GFS emsemble members show another tropical low forming to our southeast near the area where Lala, Moke and Lowell formed. A handful of the European model ensemble members show a similar potential, but only a handful, so the GFS is looking like an outlier solution at this point.
