At the time of writing early Tuesday morning, the islands of Kauai and Niihau in Hawaii were under a Hurricane Warning. Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for Oahu, which includes the city of Honolulu. Hurricane Lowell is passing just to the west of the islands, but its wind, rainfall, and storm surge footprint are within range to cause impacts as we expected. I also noticed something very unusual last night. A Tornado Watch was issued. Though tornadoes have certainly formed in the state of Hawaii, this may be the first time in history that a “watch” has been issued in the state of Hawaii. Let’s dig deeper.

What We Know About Lowell Right Now

As this morning and into the day on Tuesday, the center of Hurricane Lowell is passing very close to Niihau. Forecasters expect the storm to take more of a northwestward then westward motion and then slow some as it moves past the Hawaiian Islands. Down from its Category 5 peak earlier, Lowell is still a Category 2 hurricane with winds near 110 miles per hour and even higher gusts. “Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles (110 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 195 miles (315 km),” noted NHC at 11 pm HST. That’s why the various warnings are posted. Winds could be stronger on more elevated terrain in Kauai. The storm is also expected to produce flooding and mudslides with 4 inches to isolated values of 2 feet possible in Kauai, the Big Island, and Oahu.

We know that tornadoes are a common feature on the “dirty side” of the hurricane eye. As storms approach land, the right-front quadrant will typically have the strongest winds, most intense storm surge, and the potential for tornadoes. “The threat of short-lived, fast-moving tornados/waterspouts will be present mainly near Kauai and Niihau as Lowell makes its closest approach to the islands through early Tuesday morning,” wrote the National Weather Service in its 11:06 pm HST discussion. "A tornado watch is in effect for Kauai and Niihau. Any tornadoes would likely be embedded in rainbands. The threat for tornadoes is lower near the remaining islands, but not zero," They continued. As Tuesday progresses, the tornado threat should decrease.

“This is the first time a tornado watch has ever been issued for the Aloha State," wrote Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci on his public Facebook page last night. To be clear, there have been tornadoes recorded in Hawaii over the years. NWS has a list of them spanning the period of 1950 to 2018. There have been a few tornado warnings in the state, according to weather observers. It is not uncommon to have tornado warnings and not a watch. Remember, a watch indicates favorable conditions and a warning is issued if a tornado has been identified by an observer or Doppler radar.

Cappucci further explained that outside of the the lower 48 states, tornado watches are issued by local NWS offices. Otherwise, the NWS Storm PredictionC enter handles watches and outlooks. Rashiv Kathari is a writer for The Watchers . He said Cappucci’s post also noted that this is so rare for Hawaii that the automated NWS social media accounts were not “wired up,” to tween the words tornado watch based on how the messaging is encoded."

Cappucci is one of the best and most credible colleagues I know, but until there is an official NWS confirmation, I will say that this is possibly the first tornado watch in the history of the state. It’s certainly quite rare. However, the El Niño-fueled Pacific hurricane season is keeping Hawaii quite busy this year.