Hurricane Lala and the Big Island (First Since 1871, Rainfall Records, Power Outages)

Hurricane Lala never made an official landfall on any of the main Hawaiian Islands. That single line has confused a lot of people this week, because the damage reports coming out of Hawaii Island read exactly like a landfall. Both things are true at once, and the gap between them is worth understanding before you read another headline about this storm.

Lala formed on August 12 from a tropical wave in the central eastern Pacific and was named a tropical storm at 15:00 UTC on August 13. It became a hurricane at 19:00 UTC on August 15, nine in the morning local time, right as it was closing on the Big Island. Early on August 16 it made its closest approach, the eyewall scraped the southern part of the island, and land interaction then tore it down to a tropical storm by midday.

Then it did something most people did not expect. It moved away, reorganized over open water, and came back as a Category 4 on August 19 with winds of 130 mph and a pressure of 947 mb. As of the 11 AM HST advisory on August 19 it was a Category 3 near 22.2N 171.0W with 120 mph winds and a pressure of 955 mb, moving northwest at 9 mph, about 215 miles south of Maro Reef.

Why this was the first since 1871

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center counts Lala as the first direct hurricane impact on the Big Island since an unnamed hurricane in 1871. That is a hundred and fifty five year gap, and it is the reason this storm is being written about the way it is.

The word doing the work in that sentence is direct. Hawaii gets brushed often enough. Storms pass to the south, storms pass to the north, and the islands take swell and rain bands without ever seeing an eyewall. What almost never happens is the core of a hurricane actually reaching the coast, and that is the category Lala fell into.

It is also worth being precise about what did not happen. There was no landfall on Hawaii Island in the technical sense, because the center of circulation stayed offshore. The eyewall, which is the ring of strongest wind around that center, came ashore. If you only track landfalls you will miss storms like this one entirely, and Hawaii has a long history of exactly that kind of near miss doing real damage.

What the eyewall actually did on August 16

A hurricane watch went up for the Big Island on the morning of August 13 and became a warning twelve hours later. Maui County went under a tropical storm warning, and within hours that warning covered the rest of the main islands. Governor Josh Green declared a state of emergency for the entire state on August 13, which released emergency funds and activated the Hawaii National Guard.

The Coast Guard set Port Condition Zulu for commercial harbors on Hawaii Island and Port Condition Yankee for Maui. Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines cancelled every flight in and out of Hilo International Airport, and Kona International Airport shut down ahead of the storm. Public transit on the Big Island stopped. Every public school campus in the state closed for the weekend, and stayed closed through August 17.

The single most striking wind measurement of the storm was a 140 mph gust recorded at the summit of Mauna Kea, a record for that station. Down at sea level the numbers were smaller but still destructive, with a 74 mph gust at Olowalu on Maui and 60 mph at Port Allen on Kauai. Snow fell on Mauna Kea during the storm, which sounds absurd until you remember the summit sits at nearly 14,000 feet.

The rainfall records Lala set on the island

Rain, not wind, is what put this storm in the record books. It is now the third wettest tropical cyclone ever recorded in Hawaii, behind only Hurricane Hiki in 1950 and Hurricane Lane in 2018.

The peak total was 43.54 inches, or 1,106 mm, at Laupahoehoe on the Hamakua coast. Fifteen separate locations on the Big Island recorded more than 20 inches. Those are not totals spread across a week; they fell over roughly two days.

The consequences were immediate. A flash flood emergency was issued for parts of the Big Island, and the district of Kau was cut off entirely by floodwater. Flash floods swept two dwellings away in Naalehu, and floodwaters pushed several homes off their foundations in Waiohinu. About thirty roadways across the island closed, including sections of the Hawaii Belt Road, which is the highway that rings the island.

Oahu, more than two hundred miles from the center, still recorded rainfall rates of two inches per hour. Manoa Stream in Honolulu set a record flow of 14 feet. Interstate H-1 in downtown Honolulu was blocked by flooding, lifeguards performed 59 water rescues, and the Honolulu Police Department logged 162 storm calls. On Kauai the Kilohana gauge recorded 10.25 inches in 24 hours and the Hanalei Bridge was closed.

Power outages, downed lines and torn roofs

About 200,000 customers across the state lost electricity during the storm. On the Big Island the damage to the grid was structural rather than scattered: power lines and poles came down along 42 miles of the Hamakua coast, and sixteen transmission lines were damaged. Nineteen roofs were torn off by wind on that island alone.

Statewide, more than a hundred homes were damaged or destroyed. Maui County collected 74 damage reports, most of them in Upcountry, where a eucalyptus tree fell through the roof of St. Joseph Church in Makawao and a decades old wooden bridge in Nahiku was swept away with residents trapped behind it. Kauai Island Utility Cooperative had more than 7,500 customers out at the peak.

At least two people died. One was killed in a storm related vehicle accident at Hawaiian Ocean View, where two others were injured, and a 90 year old woman was found deceased in Naalehu after the water went down. A brown water advisory followed for the Big Island, warning that standing water was carrying pollutants. The Hawaii National Guard and the Coast Guard moved into Naalehu and Waiohinu for search and rescue.

Where Lala went after it left Hawaii

By August 18 the storm was aimed at the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and watches went up for the stretch between Lisianski Island and Maro Reef inside Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. Those became warnings on August 19 as the system intensified. As of advisory 30 a hurricane warning covered Lisianski Island to Maro Reef, with a tropical storm warning from Maro Reef east to French Frigate Shoals.

There are no towns out there. Papahanaumokuakea is a chain of low atolls, reefs and seabird colonies, and the hazard the forecasters flagged was surf rather than wind. Large waves were expected to wash over the low lying atolls, especially from French Frigate Shoals to Maro Reef. For a nesting seabird or a monk seal pup that is a serious event even though no house is standing in the way.

The official forecast has the system weakening steadily as it moves north into stronger wind shear and drier air, down to about 65 kt by August 23 and 55 kt by August 24, while tracking away from the islands. The main Hawaiian Islands are done with this one.

If you want to follow the official record rather than the coverage, the advisory and graphics archive is here: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2026/LALA_graphics.php

Local warnings, rainfall totals and recovery notices for the islands come from the National Weather Service office in Honolulu: https://www.weather.gov/hfo/

All storm graphics on this page are public domain products of the NOAA National Weather Service.

More on typhoons and storms

• Hawaii Hurricanes Are Rare (Wind Shear, Cool Water, Mountain Terrain)
• Hurricanes Almost Never Hit Hawaii. Three Have in Recorded History, and That Number Explains More Than It Looks
• Tropical Storm Lala and Hawaii: The Weekend Timeline, the Rainfall Numbers, and What It Means for a Trip You Already Booked