Lala Batters Hawaii

Hurricane Lala narrowly spared the Island of Hawaiʻi a direct hit but still battered it as a category one storm on August fifteenth, NASA Science reports. Rainfall topped forty-three inches at Laupāhoehoe, triggering flash floods and mudflows, downing trees, and knocking homes off their foundations, while Mauna Kea's summit saw blizzard conditions. Weakening to a tropical storm as it tracked northwest past Kauaʻi, Lala still left over two hundred twenty thousand customers statewide without power. Meteorologists point to this year's El Niño pattern as fueling an active Eastern Pacific season, even as the Atlantic stays comparatively calm.

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