Moisture will decrease through the rest of this weekend. Light to moderate background trade winds will prevail, allowing sea breezes to develop in sheltered leeward areas. A brief increase in showers is expected Monday night on the Big Island before a return to relatively dry trades through the end of next week.
This afternoon, relatively light to moderate background winds have allowed afternoon sea breezes to increase clouds and produce a few light showers across sheltered leeward areas of the smaller islands. Also of note, stubborn clouds and occasional showers have persisted along the North and South Kona Districts of the Big Island throughout the day, in addition to the usual windward zones. These will linger into the evening hours, but should decrease tonight. Otherwise, very few windward showers have been noted across the smaller islands, with only very light accumulations observed.
The low pressure system that brought rain to parts of the state earlier this week continues to linger to the NW of the state, though it has weakened and drifted a little farther away from the islands. Meanwhile, a trough located near the western end of the state will continue occasional passing showers for Kauai and Niihau through tonight, but these will decrease beginning on Sunday as the trough moves farther west. Drier conditions overall are expected statewide on Sunday and Monday.
A trough moving into the island chain from the west looks to bring some additional moisture to the eastern end of the state, primarily the Big Island, by late Monday night into Tuesday. Otherwise, the next several days will be dominated by relatively dry trades. Isolated to scattered showers windward and mauka will be most common at night, with some leeward cloud buildups in sheltered areas each afternoon due to light to moderate background trade winds. Trades look to increase again by the end of next week.
Light to moderate southeasterly winds will continue to bring showers to southeast and west facing coasts and slopes of Kauai through the afternoon, while moderate easterly trades prevail elsewhere. These easterly trade winds are expected to fill in completely across the island chain by sometime this evening. Showers are persisting across the coastal areas and lower slopes of the Kona Districts, along with a few showers moving into windward Big Island this afternoon. MVFR conditions are expected in and around these showers. Otherwise, VFR conditions are expected to prevail as drier air filters in on the trades.
AIRMET Sierra is in effect for mountain obscuration along the southeast and west facing coasts and slopes of Kauai, along with the stretch of lower slopes from South Point to Kailua-Kona and windward areas on the Big Island this afternoon. This shower activity is expected to slowly taper off this evening.
Moderate to fresh trade winds will prevail this weekend, though weaker winds will remain in place over the western waters as a trough continues to linger west of the area. Trade winds then decrease this upcoming week into the light to moderate range through much of the week with slight day to day fluctuations. Strengthening trades are then possible towards the end of the week as high pressure builds north of the area.
A long-period south swell has been filling in today and will peak Sunday into Monday. This will maintain elevated surf along south and west- facing shores, but it will remain below advisory levels. South shore surf will decline slightly by the middle of next week, but will be followed by a new long period swell Wednesday night or Thursday.
A medium-period northwest swell declines through the weekend as the source low pressure northwest of the Hawaiian Islands continues to weaken through Monday. This will cause small surf along north-facing shores to gradually fade today. A smaller long- period northwest swell is also forecast to move through the islands this weekend, which could prolong small surf through Sunday, but will fade by the beginning of next week. A small, long-period northwest swell is forecast to arrive on Monday and peak Tuesday, boosting north shore surf back to moderate levels. A moderate north- northwest swell is possible by the end of the week, depending on the evolution of a projected low in the north Pacific. Due to model discrepancies at this time, confidence on size is low.
Surf along east-facing shores will remain small as local winds remain fairly weak with only slight variations each day. Small, moderate-period west and east swells generated by multiple Pacific tropical cyclones are also moving through the islands this weekend.
None.
