Hurricane Lane certainly brought the rain. Record rainfall was observed throughout the state of Hawaii between August 22 and August 26, thanks to a rare glancing blow from this tropical system. Many locations on the Big Island measured rainfall by the foot.
The top total occurred in the community of Mountain View, about 15 miles south of Hilo. Over four feet of rain, 52.02 inches to be exact, fell in this location. This means that Hurricane Lane set the Hawaii tropical cyclone storm total rainfall record. The previous record, 52.00 inches, occurred at the Kanalohuluhulu Ranger Station during Hurricane Hiki in 1950.
This also ranks as the second highest storm total rainfall from a tropical cyclone in the entire United States. This is second only to Hurricane Harvey’s 60.58 inches that fell in Nederland, Texas in 2017.
There are also unconfirmed reports of higher rainfall totals from private weather stations. The National Weather Service in Honolulu is investigating some of these rainfall totals and will update the record if necessary.
Lane Possibly Breaks Hawaii Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Record!! click on link to see other notable rainfall totals https://t.co/6TwCtqSnhe pic.twitter.com/nh15GhFwnV
— NWSHonolulu (@NWSHonolulu) August 28, 2018
We will pass that information along here at WeatherNation if anything does change.