Hurricane Lowell brought Hawai‘i’s first ever Tornado Watch

While Hawai‘i’s Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau were bracing for Hurricane Lowell’s sideswipe Monday night, aside from the dangerous wind and rain and surf that you normally associated with hurricanes, they had a new challenge added on: Possible tornadoes.

NOAA had issued a Tornado Watch for Kaua‘i Monday night into Tuesday morning (it expired at 4 a.m.), and according to the research maps at Iowa State University’s IEM site, it’s likely the first Tornado Watch ever issued in the state of Hawai‘i.

A Tornado Watch means atmospheric conditions are right for tornados to possibly form in the watch area. (A Tornado “Warning” would mean they’ve been sighted either as radar indicated or visually confirmed.)

Since tornadoes are exceedingly rare in Hawai‘i, it’s likely residents there have never experienced a Tornado Watch or Warning before so it was a quick learning experience for something those in the Midwest, South, and East Coast deal with multiple times a summer.

Tornadoes are a sometimes-forgotten part of a hurricane’s wrath; spun up sometimes amid the chaotic spin and wind shear of the the passing hurricane.

It would take something like a hurricane to bring conditions that would even come close to warranting a tornado watch in Hawaii. Note on the IEM map that Tornado Watches have never been issued in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada and a large majority of California.

YOU CAN HAVE TORNADOES WITHOUT A TORNADO WATCH…

Many have pointed out that Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest have had dozens of reported tornadoes in their history. And that is correct.

As mentioned before, Tornado Watches are usually issued by NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center when a potential severe weather pattern brings the atmospheric set up that is conducive for tornado development.

In areas where tornadoes are rare, like Hawaii and Seattle, the conditions are never to the point where tornadoes are *expected* in any given pattern. In that sense they are “surprise” tornadoes.

So yes, Hawaii and Seattle have had tornadoes, but we’ve never had a pattern where NOAA has declared Tornadoes were possible that day until this Lowell-fed Tornado Watch Monday night.)

If you look on this map below from IEM, you can see Tornado Watches are never a thing on the West Coast — all areas in white with a ‘-‘ for a number indicate there hasn’t ever been Tornado Watches listed there in their records.

Now the Pacific Northwest, and Hawaii for that matter, have had Severe Thunderstorm Watches — Parts of Western Washington had one last year when we thought the big hail storm was coming. They are also very rare here; I think we’ve had just a handful in parts of Western Washington in our history.

According to IEM, Hawaii has had 33 Severe Thunderstorm Watches since 2002.

Damage from Hurricane Lowell was still being assessed as of Tuesday, but thankfully so far, the National Weather Service had not reported any tornado sightings in Hawaii in their storm reports system, and no Tornado Warnings were issued overnight.