Videocast: Huge Hawaiian Hail, Rainy Changes Here Soon

That’s golf-ball or larger sized hail in Hawaii. Besides the unusually large hail (especially for Hawaii standards), severe thunderstorms brought flooding rain, waterspouts and one that crossed the coast to become a tornado in Oahu. This is something you’d expect to see in the Great Plains or “Tornado Alley” as its known – not Hawaii. The cause here was a strong cold upper air low tapping into very warm moisture rich air with strong directional shear that got some supercells going. Not to worry, this is not headed our way and not the type of weather change we’re expecting here. But check out the video… pretty amazing! High pressure is finally giving way to a series of weather systems that should bring an increasingly wetter forecast to the Bay Area through next week. This change actually gets started this weekend in the form of variable clouds and sun at times for Saturday with a chance for some drizzle during the morning/day near the coastline and a few light showers possible across parts of the North Bay. Sunday we should see a least some light rain at times around midday as a weather system moves through by the evening.Another system will following bringing a little more wind and quite a bit more rain by Monday night into Tuesday. We may catch a break for Wednesday before another system pushes rain our way again Thursday into Friday with what looks to be the strongest system of the bunch. Rain totals are expected to remain highest over the North Bay as up through the first part of the week, the best lift to the atmosphere and moisture will be for areas north of the Golden Gate before affecting more of our southern areas. Stay tuned…as we try to pinpoint the timing and rain totals ahead. Enjoy your Saturday! – Rob Mayeda