HANALEI — The National Weather Service ended the flash-flood watch for the island of Kaua‘i Tuesday afternoon, and said heavy rain showers should be easing up over the next few days.
HANALEI — The National Weather Service ended the flash-flood watch for the island of Kaua‘i Tuesday afternoon, and said heavy rain showers should be easing up over the next few days.
Tom Birchard, NWS forecaster, said on Tuesday that Kaua‘i can still expect the trade winds to deliver some showers, but the spread of heavy rain should be diminishing later this week.
Tuesday morning, Brichard said the flash-flood watch that was in effect for the island at that time was partly due to the rainfall from earlier in the week, which saturated the soil.
“It’s fairly wet up in the mountains, and it’s still somewhat unstable today, but it should be trending towards a more-stable weather pattern after today,” Birchard said Tuesday. ” (That) doesn’t mean dry, just means less of a threat of heavy showers or flooding rainfall.”
According to the NWS, in the 24-hour period that ended at 4 p.m. Tuesday, some areas on Kaua‘i had received more than two inches of rain. The north Wailua ditch gage showed 1.81 inches, ‘Oma‘o gage recorded 2.35 inches, and Port Allen reported 2.09 inches.
Brichard said Tuesday the Hanalei rain gauge was not in service, and there was nothing significant in Waimea’s rain gauge to report.
“There was some heavy rainfall up over the mountains (Monday),” Birchard said. “That led to the flooding of the Kuhio Highway in Hanalei.”
According to the state Department of Transportation, Kuhio Highway in the vicinity of the Hanalei Bridge was closed at 6:10 p.m. on Monday and opened to alternating traffic as of 7:45 p.m. Monday.
