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Cold, windy weather They planned to show "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" at Sunset on the Beach tonight, but the prospect of a real encounter with thunder and lightning led the city to cancel the popular open-air event in Waikiki.
whips the islands
One casualty is this weekend's
open-air movies in WaikikiBy Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.comThe evening of food and entertainment at Queen's Surf Beach for tomorrow also was canceled.
Thunderstorms are part of the "gradually deteriorating weather" expected this weekend, said National Weather Service forecaster Jeff Fournier.
The upper-level low-pressure system over the islands is likely to dump rain on Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. holiday parade in Waikiki, too.
The strong, gusty trade-winds are expected to diminish by Monday or Tuesday, but the rain will hang around until Friday, Fournier said.
Big Island Civil Defense Director Bill Davis said he received reports of hail falling in downtown Hilo and on the upper Kona slope yesterday afternoon. A single caller told the National Weather Service that hail fell in Olinda, Maui. Snow capped Mauna Kea, and public access to the summit was closed because of the icy road.
A flood watch was in effect last night for the Hilo side of the Big Island. Davis said some streets were temporarily flooded because of a drenching afternoon downpour, but no serious situations developed.
Travel to Haleakala observatories on Maui was halted for a few hours yesterday morning because of ice on the summit road and temperatures that dipped to 26 degrees Fahrenheit. The road was reopened at 8 a.m. after the ice thawed.
High winds and freezing temperatures halted or slowed traffic in parts of Maui and caused a tree to fall on a parked car yesterday, authorities said. The winds also caused a brief fluctuation in electricity from Lahaina to Napili in West Maui.
No one was hurt when a tree fell on a parked car south of Launiupoko Park in West Maui close to 5 p.m. Fallen trees also partially blocked the road near the entrance of Haleakala National Park early yesterday morning, a park spokeswoman said.
A high-surf advisory is up for east-facing shores of Oahu, and a wind advisory for areas exposed to tradewinds. The weather was blamed for brief power failures on Oahu yesterday morning.
About 2,400 Ewa customers were affected when a pole fell, and 600 Kailua customers were without power after winds apparently caused two wires to arc, said Hawaiian Electric spokesman Fred Kobashikawa.
The relatively rare occurrence of lightning and thunder is caused by the same chilling conditions that turned rain to hail and dropped nighttime temperatures. Lightning develops when ice forms in the clouds as surface air rises, Fournier said, and the current upper-level low-pressure area over the islands is allowing surface air to rise much higher than in typical tradewinds weather.
Star-Bulletin Maui correspondent Gary Kubota contributed to this report.