This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by The Weather Network’s Chris Mei featuring stories about people, communities and events and how the weather has affected them.
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Hawaii isn’t known for its tornadoes. On average, it is the second to last state in terms of tornadoes. Alaska takes the “least likely” crown.
Because of this, today’s weather history theme is nowhere near as catastrophic as other days. When a tornado makes landfall in Hawaii, it’s usually very weak.
On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, Hawaii received two tornado warnings.
According to Iowa State University’s Iowa Environmental Mesonet, those warnings doubled Hawaii’s tornado warnings ever recorded in the state. Data has been collected since 1986.
The previous two warnings were for Kauai on December 13, 2008 and for Maui on March 24, 2006.
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The tornado warnings were the result of a “kona storm,” a type of cyclone in the Hawaiian Islands that is formed from westerly (“kona”) winds. Hawaii typically gets two or three of these storms a year. They usually come with heavy rain, hailstorms, strong winds, waterspouts and the very occasional tornado warning.
The second tornado warning issued that day was associated with a rotation that showed a “limited weak echo region” (BWER) on the radar. It looks like the eye of a storm. This apparent hole is created when an updraft is so strong that rain cannot fall into it.
Both of those tornado warnings didn’t quite make it to actual tornadoes, but the storm did leave an impressive hailstorm.
“The hailstone pictured above was 4.25 inches long. It was generated by a supercell thunderstorm on the island of Oahu, Hawaii on March 9, 2012 and is the largest hailstone recorded in the state of Aloha.” Courtesy of the National Weather Service
Hawaii has received only 40 confirmed tornadoes in its history, and no fatalities have been associated with them. Their costliest tornado occurred on January 28, 1971, with approximately $2.5 million worth of damage.
To learn more about this rare Hawaiian event, listen to tonight’s episode of This Day In Weather History.
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