00:00I want to show you what happened along the Big Island of Hawaii.
00:04Remember, it's an island that has a lot of terrain associated with it.
00:08I want to zoom in here, and here's the Big Island of Hawaii right here.
00:13And you'll notice, number one, a lot of mountains here.
00:17In fact, two volcanoes within the island.
00:20But while you're at sea level right along the coast,
00:24a lot of the interior sections of the Big Island, you have higher elevation.
00:28So guess what happens?
00:30The rain falls onto these ridges and mountains,
00:33and then it rushes down into the valleys, into the river basins.
00:38And it was just like a wall of water after some locations picked up over three feet of rain.
00:46Actually, we're still tracking Lala for you here this morning.
00:49Let me show you the latest satellite picture.
00:52Here's Lala, by the way, a major hurricane.
00:55Here are the Hawaiian Islands.
00:57Here's the Big Island here.
00:59And then you're talking about Lahuia and Kauai along the northwestern side.
01:04So here's Lala pulling away to the north and northeast.
01:08Now, look to the southwest.
01:09This is the next area to watch.
01:13It's well to the south and to the east of the islands.
01:17But it's a huge area of showers and thunderstorms.
01:21Just to show you another view of it, there it is, just a huge cluster of rain and thunderstorms.
01:28And, of course, this is in very warm water, and this is the area that we're going to be watching
01:34over the next few days or so.
01:36And this already has like an 80% to 90% chance of development.
01:41And, unfortunately, the way in which the upper air pattern is setting up, if it does develop, it's certainly going
01:48to be moving toward the islands.
01:49And I don't think it's going to stay off to the south.
01:52It's either going to brush the islands on the southern side or perhaps come a little farther north.
01:59The problem is the farther south it stays, the more likely it stays over warmer water, and the more likely
02:07that it will become a hurricane,
02:09and it will be impacting the Big Island again as a hurricane.
02:13That possibility does exist.
02:17Let me show you what's going on.
02:18This is the 500 millibar here this evening, and this is what we're looking at.
02:22First of all, this is Lala.
02:24This is going to be pulled to the north by this dip in the jet stream.
02:28Now, this is the area of concern, about 10 degrees north.
02:34So, again, it's well to the south and to the east of the islands right now.
02:40Note the upper air pattern, though.
02:43You've got this dip in the jet stream well to the north.
02:46I think this is going to bypass this.
02:49But as I move this forward, and let's go into tomorrow morning, here's what we're looking at tomorrow morning.
02:54You've got Lala here.
02:56Think of this.
02:57This is a dip in the jet stream here.
02:59You have a dip in the jet stream here.
03:01And that means in between you've got this area of high pressure right in here north of the islands.
03:07So, clockwise winds around the high will force this system on a west-northwest trajectory as we move forward here.
03:17Let's talk Friday morning.
03:18There's the area of rain and thunderstorms.
03:21By this time, this may be a storm.
03:23Probably will be.
03:24But you can clearly see the outline of our upper high in here north of the islands.
03:34Now, this should force this system to the west-northwest.
03:38Now, here's the question.
03:40How far north or how far west does this upper low back off?
03:45You see that off to the west in here?
03:48Right in here.
03:49Watch as we move forward here as we get into Saturday.
03:54You can see this upper low staying here but backing off just a little off to the west.
04:00What that will do is that will keep the upper high anchored north of the islands and then force this
04:09system to the south.
04:10Now, what we would like to see is either this system come farther, far enough north, coming into some cooler
04:18waters or weaken, or stay far enough to the south to have minimal impacts to the big island.
04:26Unfortunately, much of the guidance suggests that this upper low backs off, keeps the upper high north of the islands,
04:34and then forces this underneath just off to the south of the big island.
04:39This is the European.
04:40See how it does that?
04:42Just off to the south.
04:44The GFS brings it right over the islands here.
04:48Now, if this upper high or this upper low stays in here, what I'm afraid what happened would be is
04:56that that would force this upper high a little farther off to the east,
04:59and this would take this right near the big island as we head into the weekend.
05:03But right now, the preponderance of guidance suggests that this upper low backs off to the west just enough that
05:11the system doesn't make a landfall along the big island but keeps it to the south, but it's going to
05:17be a close call.
05:19That's the concern.
05:20And everything I look at as far as the wind shear is concerned tells me that the wind shear is
05:27going to be light enough.
05:28You can see here's the storm.
05:30This is Saturday morning.
05:32You can see it southwest of the islands, and the wind shear looks pretty light in here, light enough that
05:37this is going to likely be a hurricane as it moves just south of the islands over the weekend.
05:43Here's the concern, the rainfall that we would see with this.
05:49Watch the big island as we head toward the weekend.
05:52And right in here, look at this blue area.
05:55This would be likely over a foot or two of rain, and that would continue to cause the problem or
06:00bring additional flash flooding to Hawaii.
06:03So we're going to keep an eye on this area as we go over the next couple of days, but
06:09unfortunately, it's likely to develop.
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