Hurricane Lowell passes over the far western Hawaiian Islands
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) Infrared Window images (above) showed Category 2 Hurricane Lowell as its center moved northeastward (track) and passed about 40 miles west of the Hawaiian island of Ni’ihau on 08 September 2026. While sparse, 1-minute GOES-18 GLM Flash Points did indicate that some intermittent lightning activity was present. A well-defined eye was no longer discernible in GOES-18 Infrared Window imagery during the time period shown.
Tendrils of transverse banding were very apparent within the southwestern and western quadrants of Lowell (below), embedded in the anticyclonic outflow at high altitudes. (Transverse banding is a satellite signature often associated with aircraft turbulence, as discussed in these blog posts.)
A closer view of 1-minute GOES-18 Infrared Window images (below) allowed for a better depiction of the peak wind gusts that occurred on the island of Kaua’i — which included 92 mph at RAWS site Puu Lua, and 73 knots (84 mph) at METAR sites Lihue (PHLI) and Kekaha (PHBK). A list of wind gusts across the other Hawaiian islands included 80 mph in Maui County and 75 mph in Honolulu County.
The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperature associated with one of Lowell’s convective bursts was -85.02 C at 0639 UTC (below).
According to a plot of rawinsonde data from Lihue at 0600 UTC on 08 September (below), the -85 C cloud-top infrared brightness temperature roughly corresponded to the the Most Unstable (MU) air parcel’s Maximum Parcel Level (MPL), located around 110 hPa or 16.3 km.
Also of note in the Lihue sounding shown above was the Precipitable Water (PW) value of 2.70 inches — which, according to a climatology of Lihue sounding PW (below) was a new record daily maximum PW for 08 September, and also may have been the highest PW on record for Lihue (eclipsing the previous record of 2.47 inches).
The MIMIC Total Precipitable Water product (below) showed that Lowell was drawing rich tropical moisture northward into its circulation from the Intertropical Convergence Zone, as the hurricane eventually turned northeastward (track) to pass over the far western part of the Hawaiian island chain.
A Metop-C AMSU Rain Rate derived product at 0804 UTC (below) did happen to show a ragged eye-like structure associated with Lowell at that time, just southwest of Ni’ihau. Rainfall across the Hawaiian Islands was as high as 21.11 inches at Kilohana on Kaua’i.
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As previously documented on this blog, Hurricane Lowell first reached Category 5 intensity on 02 September.