The catastrophe that overtook Maui, particularly the old port town of Lahaina has been on everybody's news feeds. The images and video of what happened during those seven deadly days has shocked and horrified everyone. The speed at which the fires overtook the area are still incomprehensible. Today, August 26th, 115 people have been confirmed as having died. But despite over 40 teams of searchers, over 388 people still remain unaccounted for.
The genesis of this terrible occurrence lay in a combination of meteorological conditions. Hurricane Dora crossed the Pacific from its birthplace off the southern coast of Mexico but NOAA and the National Hurricane Center forecasted the track would pass well south of the Hawai'ian Islands. This is hurricane season for the Central Pacific and such things are to be expected. The initial disappointment was that the system was too far away to send some desperately needed rainfall to the state.
Hawai'i is in drought. No surprise there, as we are manifestly not alone. As a result, during the summer dry season, wildfires are a frequent occurrence around here. The county FD's spend as much or more time suppressing fires in brush country as they do dousing structure blazes in towns. Much of the grasslands in the state now largely consist of non-native invasive grasses. They have overgrown many areas, and yes, they can be mowed, but this is the tropics and even during drought, plants grow rapidly and wildly. Adding to that are the persistent trade winds blowing out of the northeast at double-digit speeds. Fires can be fanned by those winds and spread rapidly. The FD's are vastly experienced, and justifiably proud, at putting these blazes down, but one has to feel sympathy for them hauling heavy hose lines, tools, and other accoutrements up steep terrain while wearing protective gear under the brutal summer sun.
But this situation was different. As Dora passed to the south, two huge high pressure systems were churning away in the Gulf of Alaska. In the atmosphere, air always moves from high pressure to low pressure, and the relative proximity of these systems created what is called "a steep pressure gradient" over Hawai'i. If you've ever looked at a real weather map, you can see the lines of pressure, called isobars. In the situation in Hawai'i, those lines were very close together. Anytime you see that, you know that the winds will be howling.
