Last weekend, Hurricane Lala wreaked havoc on the Hawaiian Islands, bringing torrential rain, strong winds, and huge waves. However, as residents were bracing for the tropical storm near sea level, one of Hawaii’s highest peaks, Mauna Kea, started experiencing snowfall.
The rare sight of snow in August quickly spread on social media and meteorological circles, sparking a common question: Did Hurricane Lala really bring snow to Hawaii?
The answer is a definite yes. The uniqueness of this event lies not in the snowfall on Mauna Kea, but in the fact that a tropical cyclone brought snow in mid-August.
According to reports by weather networks, meteorologist Greg Diamond was one of the individuals documenting this event in real-time. He took to the social media platform X to write: “It’s really happening. Hurricane Lala is producing snow on the summit of Mauna Kea.”
He later added, “The fact that a hurricane can bring snow is simply incredible.”
Why did Hurricane Lala bring snow? Meteorological experts analyze that snowfall requires two elements: water vapor and cold air.
Mauna Kea reaches an elevation of 13,803 feet (about 4,207 meters). Despite its tropical latitude, due to its extremely high elevation, the temperature at the summit can still drop below freezing under specific climatic conditions.
Category 1 Hurricane Lala provided unusually abundant moisture and rainfall to the Hawaiian Islands. When this moist tropical airflow is pushed by winds towards the high-altitude areas of Mauna Kea and lifted along the terrain (terrain lifting effect), the low temperatures at high altitude quickly combine with the water vapor, causing the rainwater to freeze into snowflakes, eventually resulting in a thick layer of snow falling on the volcano’s summit.
Meteorologist and atmospheric scientist Marshall Shepherd stated that even from an expert perspective, this phenomenon is extraordinary.
Speaking about this hurricane, Shepherd pointed out that despite his over thirty years of meteorological experience, the snowfall associated with Hurricane Lala is still a “very new” phenomenon to him.
Translation provided by Slanglabs.