![]() "The sun is shining and visitors are enjoying what they came to Hawaii to do," said Stanley Hong, the president of the Hawaii Visitors Bureau. She said it also knocked out Kauai's water and power systems, and local officials said it would take weeks to restore them. The spokeswoman, Linda Sacia, said the storm had destroyed the island's macadamia nut crop and other crops that form a mainstay of the island's economy. Two deaths and 98 injuries were reported on Kauai, and one death on the main island of Oahu. And today commercial airlines began ferrying tourists off the island.Ī spokeswoman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency said 10,000 homes on the island had sustained major damage and up to 8,000 people were staying in shelters set up by the Red Cross. Loaded with generators and communications equipment as well as military rations and bottled water, the relief flights brought the essentials of daily life to 55,000 residents and thousands of stranded tourists. Iniki, which means “sharp and piercing wind” in Hawaiian, delivered the most devastating blow 19 years ago.Skimming low over the calm blue Pacific and over acres of roofless houses and broken palm trees, military C-130 relief flights landed in a daylong stream today on the lush tropical island of Kauai, forming the only link to the outside world for residents devastated by Hurricane Iniki on Friday. Despite the apparent bull’s-eye on Kauai implied by these past hurricanes, there is no meteorological reason why any of the other islands could not be hit directly. While several hurricanes have affected Hawaii with conditions such as high waves, winds of tropical storm force, and stronger-than-usual showers and thunderstorms, only four hurricanes - Nina in 1957, Dot in 1959, Iwa (pronounced EE-va) in 1982, and Iniki in 1992 - have had bona-fide direct impacts in Hawaii during the last six decades. It’s the occasional hurricane that, while somewhere south of Hawaii, takes a turn generally to the north that poses the greatest danger to the state. Several hurricanes have remained strong, however, while traversing the central Pacific, but they usually pass south of Hawaii due to a strong subtropical ridge of low- to mid-level high pressure centered north of the islands. If they’re far enough north to be aimed at Hawaii while approaching from the east, cooler waters and increasing wind shear usually weaken them significantly. ![]() About two-thirds of these move in from the eastern Pacific. In addition, upper-level winds are often fairly strong over the islands, even in summer, which can impose some wind shear on approaching tropical cyclones.įour or five tropical cyclones occur each year, on average, in the central Pacific region that includes Hawaii. While the waters around Hawaii are sufficiently warm during the June-November hurricane season to support a tropical cyclone, with the exception of the area well south of Hawaii they’re not quite at the bathtub-like temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean. It is true, though, that they’re not as frequently impacted by hurricanes as most U.S. ![]() Huh? Hawaiian Hurricanes?Įven though it seems like it sometimes, Hawaii is not hurricane-proof. ![]() The eye was over the island for about 40 minutes. mainland, as it happened less than three weeks after Hurricane Andrew devastated extreme southern Florida, the eye of Major Hurricane Iniki made a direct hit on Kauai on 11 September. Occasionally, a deep-layer trough of low pressure will develop west of Hawaii and cause a hurricane, even a major one, to move toward Hawaii from the south, as in 1992 with Hurricane Iniki. Satellite view: Hurricane Iniki moves over Kauai, 1992
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