NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben talks to meteorologist Robert Ballard of National Weather Service about Hurricane Lala's impact on Hawaii.

Transcript

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, HOST:

Hawaii is recovering from a massive hurricane that hit the state early yesterday. It's since been downgraded to a tropical storm. Robert Ballard is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service and has been tracking the storm. Welcome.

ROBERT BALLARD: Good morning, and thanks for having me.

KURTZLEBEN: So tell us what kind of impacts they're seeing on the ground in Hawaii.

BALLARD: Yeah. So we're seeing what we call the triple threat from Hurricane Lala. We're getting incredibly strong winds, very strong downslope winds coming off the mountain slopes, massive flash flooding with intense, intense rainfall. And then, of course, as we typically see with hurricanes, very high surf and storm surge as well. So it's a combination of all of those threats, which is impacting the land areas in Hawaii with just very strong winds, damage from flash flooding and high winds.

KURTZLEBEN: Now, Hawaii does periodically see hurricanes and tropical storms. How prepared is the state for this type of storm?

BALLARD: We do prepare every year, particularly when we have a very strong El Nino like this. We know that the risk for hurricanes and tropical storms is even higher. A lot of folks don't know that Hawaii is hurricane-prone, but the local folks definitely do, and so we get prepared every year. The forecast for Lala seemed like it worked out very, very well. And so I think folks had a really good idea that it was coming well before it arrived at the Big Island yesterday and last night.

KURTZLEBEN: You mentioned El Nino there. How big of a factor would you say it was in this storm or is in this storm?

BALLARD: Pretty big, actually. So we already have water temperatures - to the east and southeast of the island, ocean temperatures - which are well above normal. So a lot of times in a typical year, hurricanes approaching the islands from the east or east-southeast might weaken and kind of fall apart or at least reduce their intensity as they're coming in. But with Hurricane Lala, there was actually intensification as it approached the Big Island, which is relatively rare. We know that it happens sometimes, but this kind of ocean sea surface temperature pattern allowed that to happen. And so that's a huge concern, particularly as we're still going into the peak of hurricane season.

KURTZLEBEN: With that rise in the ocean temperature you mentioned, is it fair to say then that climate change played a role here?

BALLARD: Well, I think they'll have to do the research on what role global warming and climate change has to do with El Nino, and I know that that research is ongoing. I'll let the experts speak to that, but it is something that, you know, is of concern in the future if we're going to see more frequent episodes of warmer water in the Pacific.

KURTZLEBEN: Now, the state of Hawaii dealt with severe flooding earlier this year. Should we expect to see more? And does recovery look like it's going to be pretty tough?

BALLARD: Yeah. So parts of the Big Island over the last 24 hours have had almost 30 inches of rain.

KURTZLEBEN: Wow.

BALLARD: So if you think - more than 2 feet of rain in 24 hours is just an incredible amount of rain. Hawaii and the Big Island can take a lot of rain, but not that kind of rain. That's too much too fast, and so it's causing major, major damage. In fact, we've already had reports of homes on the southeast part of the Big Island which have been swept away from flash flooding. So this is going to be a tremendous recovery process, especially for parts of the Big Island.

And of course, on top of the rain, you have areas where the wind has been accelerated down the mountain slopes and around the mountains. And so you've had hurricane-force winds that have been affecting parts of the Big Island as well. So I think we're going to have a pretty long recovery process for the Big Island, similar to what we saw in Hurricane Iselle, which I believe was 2014.

KURTZLEBEN: That's Robert Ballard from the National Weather Service. Thank you so much for joining us.

BALLARD: Thank you.

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