Puna Weather
Friday 25th September 2026
Today very humid with increasing bands of heavy rain winds moderate to breezy from the east.
Tonight and Saturday very humid with persistent heavy rain leading to widespread flooding. Winds breezy to strong from the east.
Sunday very humid with occasional heavy rain and moderate easterly winds.
Monday decreasing humidity with light to moderate easterly winds and scattered showers.
Hurricane Nolo is moving north-northeast (towards our island) at around 5mph. The storm will stall tonight and turn west Saturday. At the point of Nolo's closest approach to our southern shores it's damaging winds remain offshore... mostly, as higher gusts are likely for our higher terrain and areas downwind (to the west) of ridges.
The heaviest rains from Nolo are also to our south, but that area of torrential rain moves over our island, enhanced by our mountains and the easterly wind direction. Rainfall rates are likely to exceed normal levels at times and there is the potential for rapid rises in stream height and widespread flooding this afternoon through Saturday.
Nolo's path is determined by a change in the steering flow as an upper level low to our northwest slides over to the west allowing high pressure to build in to our north. There is high confidence that this will happen and that Nolo will not strike our island directly, but instead pass by to our south pumping deep tropical moisture over us.
Nolo's strength is mostly determined by time as the conditions it finds itself in are favorable to steady strengthening. The eye has been open and ragged, but recently is looking more complete and this is an indication of the storm taking advantage of the environment. The latest high resolution models do not substantially increase the size of Nolo's wind field as the storm strengthens to CAT2 or even CAT3 strength over the next couple of days.
Nolo moves far enough to the west for drier air to filter in from the east late Sunday and Monday. Long range models do not show any other tropical threats for our island over the next couple of weeks.
