🌨️ Powerful storm brings Blizzard threat, Winter Storm Warning for Hawaii

HONOLULU — A powerful weather system is drenched the Hawaiian Islands on Friday, triggering flash flooding alerts across the state and even a Winter Storm Warning — yes, that’s not a typo — for the mountain summits along the Big Island.

A potent upper low-pressure center is swirling just to the north of the island, providing copious amounts of tropical moisture along with atmospheric instability that is producing strong thunderstorms that may even reach severe criteria with 50 mph wind gusts and large hail.

"Once a shower or thunderstorm develops, it'll be capable of producing strong wind gusts right along just before and right after that heavy shower," National Weather Service, Honolulu Meteorologist Derek Wroe told KHON-TV. "You can see wind gusts in excess of 50 miles per hour with a shower, which is concerning since we know we have a lot of graduation activities going on."

HOW OFTEN DO TROPICAL SYSTEMS IMPACT THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS?

The greatest threat for severe storms was on the smaller islands on Friday, spreading east into the Big Island Friday night, the NWS Honolulu said.

But aside from frequent lightning and gusty winds, torrential rains with some storms’ rain rates up to 3 inches per hour will present an islands-wide flash flood threat. Already 2-3 inches of rain fell across the windward sides of Oahu on Thursday night with more on the way as rain spreads across the rest of the state on Friday.