"This is very rare for Hawaii to have this type of supercell," said Martin. "This has a classic hook echo and even rotation with a possible tornado touchdown with it. The ingredients came together perfectly as an upper level low to the west of the Islands provided the cold mid-level atmosphere over the tropical warm low level layer. This combined with strong upper level divergence to set thunderstorms off. A strong mid-level jet was not present, but some low level jet dynamics coming into surface low to the south of Hawaii did and created the low level rotation."
Hawaii is a blind spot for severe weather forecasts due to the lack of atmospheric modeling done in the area. Events like this are rare.
According to Martin, the atmosphere will continue to have thunderstorms through Saturday with calming next week as a returning normal trade wind pattern sets in.
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