Hawaii begins recovery after damaging back-to-back storms

The second Kona low to slam Hawaii isn't done quite yet, but the worst of the rain is over.

Transcript

00:00Hawaii is now shifting into recovery mode after a second Kona low-pressure system.

00:06The heaviest rain has moved out. Flooding and cleanup efforts are still ongoing.

00:10Some areas were hit with extreme rainfall yet again just days after that historic event one week earlier,

00:16which left the ground beyond saturated.

00:19Hundreds of rescues were reported. Some roads may still need repairs.

00:23Officials say even a little more rain could lead to additional problems.

00:26And again, we had two Kona lows in about 7 to 10 days last weekend and the weekend before that.

00:33It's been nasty, and this current event's not over yet.

00:35If we look just at the past 72 hours, here are the latest reports as of early this morning.

00:41And you can see we've seen between 15 and 19 inches of additional rain over the past 72 hours,

00:49Friday, Saturday, Sunday, into early, early Monday morning, really through around midnight local time, Hawaii.

00:54Just way too much rain. Remember, there were isolated areas that saw over 40 inches a week earlier.

01:01So this has been a second Kona low.

01:04And we talk about Kona low-pressure systems or Kona storms.

01:07I'm going to plot an area of low pressure kind of cheating it onto the map.

01:11In reality, it would be a little farther west off the map.

01:14But just for argument's sake, I'm showing you the big picture.

01:17Low pressure off to the west.

01:18And when we get these storms that just sit there, they drive all this moisture, they draw moisture from the

01:25tropics right up into Hawaii.

01:26The current status, that area of low pressure, is now moving a little farther north.

01:30So now the rain's focused on the eastern islands.

01:33Still have some snow up on the summits of the big island.

01:35But the moisture content in the deep maroon, you can see it's beginning to push a little farther east.

01:41So we're making progress.

01:42We're not done with this yet.

01:43But the worst of the rain is tapering off west to east.

01:46We're going to find some improvements into midweek.