The Drew Point: A look ahead at El Nino

本站添加: 2026-05-22

[00:00:01]Alrighty. Aloha everybody. Happy Wednesday. Uh I am Drew Davis, one of the meteorologists here at Hawaii News Now. Uh we've got kind of a quiet weather pattern out there this week, but pretty breezy. Uh and also tomorrow is the day that the National Hurricane Center will be releasing their forecast for this upcoming hurricane season for both the Atlantic and the Pacific hurricane season.

[00:00:26]It's like looking go like it's going to be an active season for us when it comes to um activity in the eastern and central Pacific because of the El Nino, the stronger than average El Nino, sometimes referred to as super El Nino by the national media. Um we're going to get we're going to get into a breakdown of what we're expecting tomorrow and what we're expecting as we're going into um this hurricane season and also the next couple of days because it's going to get pretty gusty out there. You're watching my favorite show on planet Earth, The Drew Point.

[00:01:11][music] The Drew Point. Welcome everybody. Today is Wednesday. It is Wednesday, May 20th, 2026. Let's talk about what we're expecting out there before we start to break down the um a little bit more about the hurricane forecast. Again, that's coming out tomorrow. The National Hurricane Center is going to be putting it out really early tomorrow morning for the central uh east the central Pacific, the Eastern Pacific, and also the Atlantic. I think they're in Miami. So, that's going to come out pretty early.

[00:01:43]Likely going to be around I think it's around 5:00 am is when their press conference is. So, we're gonna have a stream in here tomorrow and getting ready for that. And that's going to be around 12:30. Um, again, likely going to be a higher than average uh season of activity in the Pacific Ocean just because of El Nino. The waters are warmer in the Eastern Pacific during an El Nino year leading to more hurricane development. I'll get to that in a bit.

[00:02:07]Uh, we've got people commenting. Uh, Penny is saying aloha uh from the Big Island. Thanks for thanks for watching, Penny. I appreciate you tuning in. If I'm ever down there, I'll I'll stop by.

[00:02:19]I'll stop by and say hi. Let's take a look at what's going out uh going on outside in the First Alert radar and satellite. We'll zoom in island by island and show you what's going on today. Over the last hour or so, we've been seeing some showers along the Kola Mountain Range. Not a ton of rainfall out there. A little bit heavy in parts of the mountains, but this rainfall is trying to make its way over the Kola Mountain Range getting into the central portions of Oahu. Some light rainfall likely coming down in Ia Heights, just Mala of Milani and also just Mala of Wahiwa as well. It's a few sprinkles in town as we zoom in just a little bit closer to town. This is over the last hour or so. Just some light rainfall coming down. Not a ton of rainfall out there. Let's actually zoom out and show you what's going on over Mikati and Lai Ko Olave and Maui. You're seeing some rainfall over towards Windward, Maui, just Mala of Hana. Some rainfall moving north of Maokai and uh a few sprinkles over Kave. Not much over Lai right now.

[00:03:16]And over on Hawaii Island, not as much rainfall out there, but we are seeing some cloud cover that we're tracking. Uh you can see cloud cover over the Kyu Kona side of the big island over near Hilo, upper Hilo all the way up towards the Hamakua coast extending up towards Honoka. Little bit more sunshine around volcano today, at least in the latest satellite scan. Pretty cloudy over in Puna. Ocean view also seeing some cloud cover as well. I haven't forgotten about Kauaii and Niha. Let's go over there.

[00:03:43]Again, the Kauaii radar only shows the southwest and east shores of the island.

[00:03:48]You really can't see what's going on to the north because of the mountains. Uh you see the staticky pattern right here.

[00:03:53]This is not rain coming down, but rather sea salt and sea spray getting picked up and lofted by the breezy trades. Maybe a little bit of rainfall coming down over Mount White Ali Allay. Maybe some sprinkles near Honlay as well, but we really can't see what's going on. All right, checking the comments. We've got a good amount of people watching on Facebook today. About 75 people and uh not as much on YouTube, but thanks for tuning in, guys. I This is always a fun show. If you have any questions, remember collab this is a collaborative experience. We're here. I'm here to answer questions. I try to do my best, give you a breakdown of the entire weather pattern. Live outside we go.

[00:04:29]Beautiful out there today. Looking towards the reef runway. You can actually see uh looks a little hazy out there. Um I this is this is likely not fog. If anything, I think this is probably just sea salt and sea spray getting lofted lofted up because of how breezy it is outside. Seeing temps around 83 degrees. Winds out of the east northeast around 17 miles per hour.

[00:04:50]Pretty breezy out there. We've been seeing some gusts getting a little bit higher than that. Closer to that 30 to 40 mph range. Humidity around 56%. So, it feels a little bit warmer out there uh than it actually is. It feels like 85. Um so, it feels a little bit warmer, a few degrees warmer. Here's what we're tracking going forward the next couple of days cuz we're going to be seeing some passing windward showers, stronger trades by the time we get to tomorrow. A little bit stronger going into Thursday and Friday. No significant swells ahead, which is a little unfortunate. I know surfs on the decline. Pretty choppy out there on east facing shores because of the trade winds.

[00:05:28]the uh trade winds are causing the swell on or the surf, excuse me, on east facing shores to be on the rise. Now, breaking down the overall weather pattern, let's just show you what's going on. You can see out there, this is what I like to call the meat and potatoes. Uh it's kind of what we're meteorologists are looking at. You're usually not going to see this shown on traditional linear television because if I if I showed a surface pressure chart with the isobars and uh we're talking about um pressure heights uh geop potential heights and pressure surfaces I think I would get a scolding from our executive producers and uh news directors saying don't do the science but here we are on the Drew point we we do the science here we show the science okay so we've got a pretty strong high pressure system off to the northeast of us. You can actually see uh pretty strong high pressure system. Air rotates around high pressure like this clockwise. So, you can see the air coming out of the east and northeast because of the rotation around this high off to the north. This is a pretty strong one. It's going to be getting pretty strong over the next couple of days and moving more north of us. So, we're going to continue to see strong trade winds out there. Zooming in a little bit closer. I do want to show you these lines. So, these are isobars or lines of constant pressure at the surface. The closer these are together, the faster the wind speed is. So notice they're pretty close together, especially uh in relation to this high pressure system. That's why we're seeing pretty strong winds out there.

[00:06:57]Jan is saying, "Aloha from Kaimuki."

[00:06:58]Thanks for tuning in, Jan. Um and the high pressure kind of just hangs out going into this weekend. No real break in the high pressure. Gets a little bit weaker going into Sunday and Monday.

[00:07:07]Some activity in the northern Pacific Ocean. You can see this mid- latitude cyclone moving over the Illutian Islands. A very, very weak front associated with it. That's going to likely cause the high pressure to get a little bit weaker going into next week.

[00:07:20]at the mid levels. One of the reasons we saw all of that activity this past weekend with the lightning and the uh flash flood warning that was because of a disturbance uh at the mid and upper levels that cut off from the uh jet jetream and moved down south and it just kind of moved over the island chain and gave us the lightning. It was pretty cold so it's allowing for the ice crystal development which actually led to the lightning that we saw out there.

[00:07:47]Uh but that has moved away from us. The next couple of days in our mid-level flow, you're kind of seeing uh troughing going off to the northeast of us.

[00:07:54]Nothing too strong. This is attached to a low pressure system off the southwestern portions of the continental United States. Ridging or higher pressure building in from the northwest.

[00:08:04]Nothing atypical out there. It's going to be uh passing showers going into Saturday and Sunday. Kind of a similar pattern happening at the upper levels.

[00:08:12]You can see this trough, very weak trough off to the northeast of us. Um, kind of hanging out just off the west coast of the continental United States.

[00:08:19]Then strong ridging building in Saturday into Sunday. And that's actually going to help the high pressure system stick around, which is um going to continue those trade winds out there. So, nothing crazy in the pattern going forward.

[00:08:32]Let's just take a look at what's going on uh in the models in terms of rainfall.

[00:08:40]Okay. Uh, Penny is asking, "This is I think this is a pretty good question. Is our weather pattern out here different as we have an entire mile of just lava between us and the oceans? I've noticed a lot more wind since 2018 when the lavas came through here." Penny, that's a that's is a great great question. So, you're uh uh Poiki on the Big Island.

[00:08:59]Um, so that is of course uh lava fields and you mentioned the wind. So the the thing here is uh wind uh one of the things that we we learned about in um in as a meteorologist is the amount that friction plays into the the wind uh at the surface. So of course with less trees um with the lava fields the same thing happens over the oceans. Winds can get much higher over the oceans because it's relatively flat. Um, so you have uh just air able to move through pretty quickly, but if there's trees uh forest uh like there was before the lava flows, you have uh friction breaking up the wind flow at the surface. So it's not as strong. U but yes, so that you guys are in a very unique microclimate. That's the thing about Hawaii is that there's so many different microclimates. You've got Windward Oahu Town is different.

[00:09:58]Town's pretty dry. Uh most of the time you get a few sprinkles coming in. uh Leeward, Oahu, central Oahu. There's very different there's so many different things that go into the forecast here.

[00:10:08]And that's just Oahu. I mean, the Big Islands got a lot more going on, especially with the volcanoes. Uh Leeward, Leeward, Big Islands, drier. Um higher elevations, you get snow. There's so much going on. So, yes, everybody's got a different weather pattern. Uh here in Hawaii, it's kind of forecasting on hard mode because every time I give a forecast for the entirety of the state, it is one of those microclimates is is bound to is bound to have a mind of its own. That's what I guess that's what I'm saying. And uh then the forecast is wrong. So it's kind of hard to do the entirety of the state and be super accurate, but uh that's a great question. Yes, David, I'm back. I am back, David, at my normal time.

[00:10:52]All right, Chris, aloha from Kauaii.

[00:10:55]Mia's watching from Milani. Todd from Milani.

[00:10:59]Uh Brian's watching from Curtistown, Big Island. And then uh we've got uh uh Nanakuli Vis uh watcher as well. Thank you guys for tuning in. Um again, very fun collaborative experience here.

[00:11:14]Let's show you what's going on.

[00:11:16]Uh David saying it's been raining day and night here in Volcano and Upper Puna. Yeah, I've been seeing just consistent tradewind showers moving in towards Puno. We've been showing that on the radar the last couple of days.

[00:11:26]Again, it's kind of a typical there's moisture riding in along the trades thing or graphic lift going on. The mountains help lift those showers up a little bit. Uh yeah, nothing atypical for Puna. Puna is very wet. Uh all right, let's uh let's get into it and show you what's going on in terms of rainfall. Nothing out of the ordinary. A couple of bands of moisture might be moving in along the trade winds, but nothing uh nothing that's very different. A little bit drier out there Thursday into Friday with the drier trade winds. Let's show you the graph, which is our high resolution model out there. Next couple of days, you're seeing scattered showers, mostly windward.

[00:12:08]Yeah, nothing atypical. Nothing atypical out there.

[00:12:13]All right, here we go. Uh also we're showing uh the this is the global model which is not as high resolution. So you're seeing more gra rainfall out there. You can see maybe late tonight showers over eastern Hawaii Island, eastern Maui windward areas. That's that's going to be the the case going forward. Scattered showers out there. Nothing out of the ordinary.

[00:12:37]And then uh a little bit drier with the stronger trade winds. The GFS showing the same thing. Windward showers. very typical pattern over the next week or so. Uh let's show you what we're expecting in terms of rainfall accumulation though. Like I just mentioned, a better chance for rainfall over in Hilo, upper Hilo, eastern Maui.

[00:12:54]Not much over Aahu. Uh 210 of an inch in Honlay, not much in Kaha. And uh that's the graph. That's the high resolution model. the the global models which again aren't as high def show much higher rainfall totals over the next week or so just from those showers coming in over the next week we could see an additional three inches in Ocean View Hilo 2 and a half much higher totals near Halakala Maui uh Hana in Maui 2 inches in Kaneohhe this is over the next week or so uh and kind of similar numbers going on in the American weather model the GFS out there an additional two to three in Hilo, three and a half maybe. And then a 4/10en of an inch in town, 4/10 of an inch in Kaha, two in Honlay, and 8/10 of an inch in Kaneohay. Yesterday we saw some areas seeing about an inch of rainfall.

[00:13:52]Um closer to upper Hilo along the Kohala coast, Windward Maui saw rainfall pretty dry over Aahu. Also, um, Mulikai and Lai and Kauaii pretty dry as well, except for Mount Alle Ali. And we've got breezy trade winds out there. Uh, winds between 15 to 25 miles hour. 25 mileph winds right now in Latidia as you're watching this video and just pretty strong going into Thursday between 15 to 25 milesPH.

[00:14:23]Similar story going into Friday. Gust probably closer to 30 miles hour and above. This is all playing into the surf forecast as well, making it pretty choppy out on east facing shores.

[00:14:36]Excuse me, east facing shores around 4 to 6. North and west facing shores around 10 to three and 0 to2. South facing shores right around 3 to 5 out there for this afternoon. And like I've been mentioning, not much in terms of swell energy. We'll likely be seeing a swell move just to the north of us going into this weekend. That is about it that I have for the forecast aspect of this, but I do want to mention that again, we are going into hurricane season and I want everybody to be prepared. Hurricane season this year is likely going to be above average in terms of the amount of storms that we see. So, let's pull up let's pull up some of our graphics. I want to show you guys um some of the history that we have and what we're expecting from the um National Hurricane Center with their release. I'm going to make sure that I pull up our graphics because these got updated by our team a few days ago. I want to make sure we're pulling it up correctly.

[00:15:34]Okay. Yes. Here we go. Um so this is what we saw. This is the list of the names that we have this year for 2026.

[00:15:43]This is the uh tropical cyclone names in the eastern Pacific. Um so this is not the central Pacific. The central Pacific again has a list of Hawaiian names and they just keep going down the list. It doesn't get replaced every year. The first in the Eastern Pacific is Amanda.

[00:15:58]Then we go to Boris, Christina, Douglas, and so on. What's likely going to happen is we're likely going to be seeing a number of these a number of this list get crossed off. Again, the Eastern Pacific hurricane season. Technically, it's already started. It starts May 15th each year compared to June 1st, uh, for the Central Pacific and the Atlantic.

[00:16:20]Uh, but what's going on in the Eastern Pacific with El Nino is that the waters are going to be much warmer than average. Uh, meaning a few degrees warmer than average, allowing hurricanes to develop much easier. Uh, hurricanes again just run off of the energy from warm water in the ocean. So, if you get warm water, 80° uh seawater surface temperatures, that water starts to evaporate. As it evaporates, it releases energy. The storms take advantage of that. And so, we're going to be seeing warmer water, meaning we'll likely be seeing more storms out there. And we take a look at the Central Pacific. Like I said, there's a different list. Um this is the Central Pacific. We last year I believe we had um Iona uh and then uh Hone's on the list this year, but this is the list for 2026.

[00:17:12]Um and then let's also take a look at what we're expecting for the number of tropical cyclones this year. Again, the official forecast from the National Hurricane Center, they're basing it off of trends of El Nino and L'inia. Uh but let's take a look an active El Nino which was 2015 and 2016.

[00:17:32]Meaning 2015 was uh there was 16 storms and we're looking at an active El Nino if not a super El Nino which is a very very active uh year. So meaning we'll likely see a good number of storms in the central Pacific basin. Uh seven being in 2016, two in 2017, another El Nino year in 2018 and 2019. Quiet L'inia from 2020, 2021, 2022. Leninia again suppresses hurricane activity. Uh El Nino 2023, that was also the year that we had hurricane Dora, which helped uh which caused those winds to get stronger during the um the 2023 August wildfires uh in Maui and across the state really because we saw wildfires everywhere. Um uh but it caused those winds to get stronger. It helped increase the wind speed uh because we had a strong high pressure system to our north and a strong low pressure system. So the pressure gradient was pretty high. Uh two in 2024 which was lania and four in 2025.

[00:18:39]Uh we're likely going to be seeing an active year. Um it's looking more and more like we're going to be seeing a a a number of a number of stor a number of storms.

[00:18:50]Now, it doesn't mean that we'll see a landfall. Um, we've been relatively lucky uh over the last 30 years. We haven't seen a direct landfall in a very, very long time. The last storm that caused a a significant amount of damage um from a direct landfall, let me be careful with my words here, was hurricane Aniki. Um, Aniki of of course was a 1992 Kauaii same storm that was causing the rain when they were filming Jurassic Park caused a lot of damage to Kauaii.

[00:19:24]There's been 30 years without a storm. I believe that it is it is crucial to be prepared for this hurricane season uh because it's just it's kind of fallen out of we're we're usually protected by strong wind shear near the islands. That's a very it's very common. You might hear that a lot during uh hurricane season.

[00:19:47]Oh, the wind shear it'll will tear tear it apart. That's usually the case. Uh these storms, the windshare does protect u the Hawaiian islands, but there has been instances of us seeing pretty bad storms. Aniki, it's been 30 years. We're likely going to be seeing more storms.

[00:20:04]We just want everybody to be prepared.

[00:20:06]It's important to be prepared, especially after the Kona low storms, I feel like, expose some infrastructure issues that we have on the islands. Um, and a hurricane could potentially be worse. So, we just want people to be prepared. We're going to be here live streaming tomorrow um with uh the update from the Pacific, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center, the National Hurricane Center. I believe the governor is going to be involved as well. Uh it is incredibly important to be prepared. The official numbers come out tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. Hawaii time because it's being announced at uh the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Uh so I think that's that's what I'm that's what I want to want to say uh I want to say about the hurricane season. Again, the official forecast comes out tomorrow. I mean, it's just a forecast. the longer range models tend to not handle the numbers and we're just looking at trends. Uh but we want everybody to be prepared that the trend is hinting that we'll likely be seeing more storms. That doesn't mean that we'll be seeing a landfall, but it means that the likelihood of a landfall is going to go up because of uh the amount of storms that we'll be seeing. And we just want everybody to be prepared, have your hurricane kits ready, and have a plan ready to go throughout this hurricane season. Let me check the comments.

[00:21:28]Isel. Okay, Kevin's Kevin is correcting me. Tropical storm Isel. I'm Kevin. I I I apologize if I didn't use my language correctly. I I I was meaning a major hurricane. Um when I said the last 30 years, that's that's what I I've meant a category three or above, which would have been an uh but you're right, we have seen landfalls of tropical storms.

[00:21:52]I mean, we had Hurricane Hon go just to the south of the big island. Kiko just went to the north of the island chain a couple years ago and Eel did make landfall um if I remember correctly. But Kevin, that's a great point. Um I that's on me. I didn't use the language correctly.

[00:22:17]Uh all right, couple of questions in Facebook. Our water's warm enough around us to hold a hurricane. Uh likely not going to be seeing a hurricane just yet.

[00:22:27]Uh it takes a couple months for it does to warm up, but waters are going to be warming up throughout the next couple of months. David saying very windy and Kavih High. That's very very correct.

[00:22:40]Uh with all the weird weather we've been having, do we know what if anything what might mean for upcoming hurricane season or how it could possibly affect it? Yes, El Nino likely going to be above average.

[00:22:50]Um, okay. Just making sure.

[00:23:20]Uh, tropical storm EEL. Thanks, Kevin, for bringing that up. I was more so talking about the major hurricanes.

[00:23:28]All right. Again, we want everybody to be prepared this this um this hurricane season. It's important to make sure that we are ready to go. Um especially with the potential for it to be an active season. Thank you all for tuning in.

[00:23:43]We're going to wrap it up here.

[00:23:45]We're going to wrap it up here. And uh hopefully you have a wonderful rest of your day. More news coming up at 4. And we will also see everybody uh tomorrow.

[00:23:54]We're going to do the live stream around 12:30. And then uh we'll we'll see you then. Have a good one. Bye.

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