Hurricane Hone sweeps past Hawaii, dumping enough rain to ease wildfire fears
- Hone triggered memories still fresh of last year’s deadly fires on Maui which were fuelled by hurricane-force winds, and left 22 people dead
Hurricane Hone passed just south of Hawaii on Sunday, dumping enough rain for the National Weather Service to call off its red flag warnings that strong winds could lead to wildfires on the drier sides of islands in the archipelago.
Hone (pronounced hoe-NEH) had top winds of 85mph (140kph) on Sunday morning as it moved westward, centred about 45 miles (72km) off the southernmost point of the Big Island, according to Jon Jelsema, a senior forecaster at the Central Pacific Hurricane Centre in Honolulu. He said tropical storm-force winds were blowing across the island’s southeast-facing slopes, carrying up to a foot (30cm) or more of rain.
“As the rain gets pushed up the mountain terrain it wrings it out, kind of like wringing out a wet towel,” Jelsema said on Sunday. “It’s been really soaking those areas, there’s been flooding of roads. Roads have been cut off by high floodwaters there in the windward sections of the big island, and really that’s the only portion of the state that’s had much flooding concern at this point.”
Hurricane Gilma, meanwhile, increased to a Category 4 hurricane on Saturday night, but it was still far east of Hawaii and forecast to weaken into a depression before it reaches the islands.
Some Big Island beach parks were closed because of dangerously high surf and officials opened shelters as a precaution, Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said.
