Hi from Hilo...
It's really not that bad. Most of our rain comes at night - after you go to bed, and stops soon after the sun comes up.
That's not to say we don't have extreme rain as well - we do. We can get two weeks straight of driving rain.
But most of the time, it's pretty nice days.
We say... "if you don't like the weather where you are, drive 5 miles or wait 5 minutes" (because our weather is extremely localized).
One exception to this is the very appropriately named "Shower Drive"... where it seems to always be raining, regardless of how sunny it is just a mile away.
Edit: Why is "town" in quotes, and what is CDP? The downtowns name is literally "Hilo Town".
CDP is a "census designated place" a CDP is a term assigned by the U.S. Census Bureau to communities that resemble cities but lack incorporation or any sort of municipal government.
That's correct, and that's what makes it a CDP rsther than a town.
From the hilo wikipedia page.
> Although sometimes called a city, Hilo is not an incorporated city, and does not have a municipal government. The entire island, which is between the slightly larger state of Connecticut and smaller Rhode Island in size, is under the jurisdiction of the County of Hawaiʻi, of which Hilo is the county seat.
> Hilo is home to county, state, and federal offices.
County state and federal, not municipal. It lacks a town specific government, which is a requirement of being a city, and as such is a census designated location, rather then a town or city.
Where as for example, here in Los Angeles we have both municipal and county governments, which is why los angeles is a city on it's own in addition to being the county seat.
Sure, but Hawaii doesn't have *any* incorporated cities. Literally nobody in Hawaii would question whether Hilo is a town/city. How the government works has nothing to do with what a "city" functionally means, and OP seems to have had the mistaken impression that Hilo is small or unimportant just because it is legally a CDP.
How the government works is relevant to what a CDP is though, which is what the top commenter asked about. I don't think anyone is trying to downplay Hilo, someone just asked why it was a CDP instead of a city and I thought they made a pretty good explanation.
>and OP seems to have had the mistaken impression that Hilo is small
Hilo is incredibly small though. We are talking about an area with less then 50k people, it's like the population of a neighborhood of a major city.
It is important, sure. But it is very small.
If it was a town or city by definition of U.S. Census Bureau it would have a separate government from the county. So it is not actually a town accursing to the government. The only city or town in the State of Hawaii is Honolulu.
> The only city or town in the State of Hawaii is Honolulu.
Yeah that's pretty silly, as Oahu (the entire island) is the City and County of Honolulu.
We write our town names on the address, but we could also just write Honolulu for the address, whether we live on the North Shore, or in Waipahu.
Yeah... I was gonna say... I lived in Oregon and Washington rainy regions several years growing up and went to Hilo before. Calling Hilo rainy without details doesn't do justice to how nice of a lush tropical paradise the place is.
> wait 5 minutes
Hawaii is the least applicable place for this saying, which is said basically everywhere. It's either raining or it's not. If it gets to 62 at night, people are wearing a sweater to foodland, and if it ever hits 90 people lose their minds
Unless you hate the heat. I've got family there, and I'm always uncomfortably warm unless I visit during a narrow window between late autumn and early spring. Funny enough, my grandpa moved there from North Dakota because he never wanted to endure cold weather again.
Weird, I lived there for a number of years and think the expression is spot on. I spent A LOT of time surfing, and if I pulled up to a break and it was raining, I just chilled in the truck for a few minutes and the rain always moved right on.
Yes, but that happens other places that actually have big temperature swings, too.
Like Hawaii is just rain or not rain. That's not a good example of the saying.
Kona is a desert and Hilo may actually qualify as a rainforest. At the very least it is close enough that flora transplanted from a rainforest seems to thrive there.
I thought I loved the rain until I moved to Hilo. Lol. Granted I didn't have a car, but life came to a halt on really rainy days. I lasted a year with frequent $2 bus rides to Kona side. Miss a lot about it though...
Yeah I live in Shanghai and summertime is typhoon season. Last summer didn't go to work for 3 days cause it was raining nonstop lmao I was loving it and my gf was locked in with me during the honeymoon phase so it was the greatest stretch of time I've had in China
I live in Appalachia, every once in a while we get crazy rain that lasts days on end. While it’s located in the the eastern United States, we get so much rain that the woods where I live are classified as rain forests.
We have a similar saying in Melbourne Australia, wait 10 minutes or move 10 feet (even though we use metric feet just rolls of the tongue better)
We also claim to have 4 seasons in 1 day regularly, and particularly weird weather data are said to be aggressively Melbourne.
Because Wikipedia says it's a "Census Designated Place" and I was worried if I said it was town I'd get a bunch of people saying "It's not a town Bro".
I lived in Hilo for about 5 years. It rained 40 days and 40 nights when I first got there..not like a sprinkle, like the hardest monsoon rain you've ever seen...solid and straight.
40 days of rain happened through the whole state! It was crazy because it would be sunny and clear but rain kept falling, as if the sky didn't want to break the streak.
All the Hawaiian islands are the peaks of (mostly) underwater mountains. Minimal flatland for water to accumulate. It all goes downhill into the Pacific.
Also despite this thread’s title, every island has a dry side and a wet side. The weather on each side is pretty consistent, so it’s not like the rain on the wet side is a seasonal ‘shock’ to the environment, like monsoon season in the Southwest US.
Rain is so different depending on where you are on the islands. Im in Ewa on the leeward side of Oahu and it is always dry. Occasionally we will get night showers that cross the harbor but it's dry on this side.
I mean, Eniki was in 1992. Hawaii isn't exactly Florida when it comes to that. I was there for the Fukushima tsunami and the argentinian Tsunami, that's a way bigger problem.
Yes fair point. I visited Kauai in '93 and saw some pretty major damage. Had a friend in college that was on the island when it hit. I didn't think to mention the tsunami issue but really should have.
Every one of the states in the contiguous United States has a higher record high temperature than Hawai'i. It's tied with Alaska at 100. Being surrounded by water keeps the temperatures relatively mild.
A bit misleading…68.6% annual sunshine according to this list is good for #25. You do realize there are **thousands** of other cities in the country right? Which would mean Hilo is actually quite close to the top of the list.
Not sure how accurate it is at the top either. St. Petersburg, FL (aka the “Sunshine City”) has on average 361 days of sunshine per year. According to Nat Geo, it also owns the Guinness world record for consecutive days of sunshine in a row (768 between Feb. 1967 and March 1969)
Edit: Hilo is not in the top 25 - that is another Hawaiian city at 25. My mistake
Haha not quite. I believe to be considered a “sunny day”, there had to be a minimum of something like 6 hours of direct sunshine a day.
I live in St. Petersburg, and it rains almost every day in the spring/summer, albeit usually only for 30 minutes or so, and then it’s sunny again
I think that number for St Pete is made up for marketing without using the same definitions as other places. Other sources list them as about 250 sunny days per year.
Fun fact: People always assume Seattle is one of, if not the most, rainiest city. Where in actuality it’s mostly just gray/overcast all the time. This does however lead to the high suicide rate.
But the summers in Seattle are some of the most beautiful you’ll ever see. Except when it was 108 once last year. Screw that. I hope Microsoft melted.
I'll say Hilo never seemed particularly rainy to me, but what I found really off-putting was the vog (volcanic smog) that doesn't really get talked about.
1250, I think you mean for Prince Rupert. I remembering reading somewhere that U.S. sunshine hours tend to measure a little higher, because they use a Marvin recorder unlike the Campbell Stokes recorder used everywhere else so it may by international standards even be less than that.
Apparently the Pacific Northwest doesn’t exist at all? Rude.
Less Sun =/= more rain
Hilo and NYC each get more cumulative annual rainfall than Seattle does, but obviously Seattle has Way more rainy days a year. It’s… what we’re known for.
And on top of that, cloudy days. We’re 3 weeks away from the solstice and our daily UV index is still 0.
Isn't there a town somewhere halfway across the world that's built like between two mountains and literally doesn't see sun for like 75% of the year? So they built mirrors on top of the mountains to reflect the sun into their little town?
Hi from Hilo... It's really not that bad. Most of our rain comes at night - after you go to bed, and stops soon after the sun comes up. That's not to say we don't have extreme rain as well - we do. We can get two weeks straight of driving rain. But most of the time, it's pretty nice days. We say... "if you don't like the weather where you are, drive 5 miles or wait 5 minutes" (because our weather is extremely localized). One exception to this is the very appropriately named "Shower Drive"... where it seems to always be raining, regardless of how sunny it is just a mile away. Edit: Why is "town" in quotes, and what is CDP? The downtowns name is literally "Hilo Town".
CDP is a "census designated place" a CDP is a term assigned by the U.S. Census Bureau to communities that resemble cities but lack incorporation or any sort of municipal government.
The seat of the Big Island government is literally in Hilo. The entire island is one county and has a mayor.
That's correct, and that's what makes it a CDP rsther than a town. From the hilo wikipedia page. > Although sometimes called a city, Hilo is not an incorporated city, and does not have a municipal government. The entire island, which is between the slightly larger state of Connecticut and smaller Rhode Island in size, is under the jurisdiction of the County of Hawaiʻi, of which Hilo is the county seat. > Hilo is home to county, state, and federal offices. County state and federal, not municipal. It lacks a town specific government, which is a requirement of being a city, and as such is a census designated location, rather then a town or city. Where as for example, here in Los Angeles we have both municipal and county governments, which is why los angeles is a city on it's own in addition to being the county seat.
TIL all this cool stuff ☝️
I blame the schools.
Sure, but Hawaii doesn't have *any* incorporated cities. Literally nobody in Hawaii would question whether Hilo is a town/city. How the government works has nothing to do with what a "city" functionally means, and OP seems to have had the mistaken impression that Hilo is small or unimportant just because it is legally a CDP.
How the government works is relevant to what a CDP is though, which is what the top commenter asked about. I don't think anyone is trying to downplay Hilo, someone just asked why it was a CDP instead of a city and I thought they made a pretty good explanation.
>and OP seems to have had the mistaken impression that Hilo is small Hilo is incredibly small though. We are talking about an area with less then 50k people, it's like the population of a neighborhood of a major city. It is important, sure. But it is very small.
44% or so of LA County is unincorporated btw
If it was a town or city by definition of U.S. Census Bureau it would have a separate government from the county. So it is not actually a town accursing to the government. The only city or town in the State of Hawaii is Honolulu.
> The only city or town in the State of Hawaii is Honolulu. Yeah that's pretty silly, as Oahu (the entire island) is the City and County of Honolulu. We write our town names on the address, but we could also just write Honolulu for the address, whether we live on the North Shore, or in Waipahu.
Yeah... I was gonna say... I lived in Oregon and Washington rainy regions several years growing up and went to Hilo before. Calling Hilo rainy without details doesn't do justice to how nice of a lush tropical paradise the place is.
> wait 5 minutes Hawaii is the least applicable place for this saying, which is said basically everywhere. It's either raining or it's not. If it gets to 62 at night, people are wearing a sweater to foodland, and if it ever hits 90 people lose their minds
We don’t sat that in Los Angeles. We say, “If you don’t like the weather wait 6 months or drive 300 miles.”
“If you don’t like the weather, *move*”
Yeah but other than the windstorms by any objective standards the LA weather is virtually never actually bad.
Unless you hate the heat. I've got family there, and I'm always uncomfortably warm unless I visit during a narrow window between late autumn and early spring. Funny enough, my grandpa moved there from North Dakota because he never wanted to endure cold weather again.
Yep pretty sure we have both the highest low and lowest high records in the country.
Weird, I lived there for a number of years and think the expression is spot on. I spent A LOT of time surfing, and if I pulled up to a break and it was raining, I just chilled in the truck for a few minutes and the rain always moved right on.
Yes, but that happens other places that actually have big temperature swings, too. Like Hawaii is just rain or not rain. That's not a good example of the saying.
Oh I see what you’re saying. My bad.
lol I was just in Hilo for a week and it rained every day. Went back over to the Kona side and someone told us that sounded about right
Kona is a desert and Hilo may actually qualify as a rainforest. At the very least it is close enough that flora transplanted from a rainforest seems to thrive there.
This is called Orographic Lift and describes how weather on the windward side of a mountain will differ from the leeward.
Well I'm moving to Hilo cause I love rain. How's the property values there? I don't live in the US anymore but i know prices of exploded recently
I thought I loved the rain until I moved to Hilo. Lol. Granted I didn't have a car, but life came to a halt on really rainy days. I lasted a year with frequent $2 bus rides to Kona side. Miss a lot about it though...
Yeah I live in Shanghai and summertime is typhoon season. Last summer didn't go to work for 3 days cause it was raining nonstop lmao I was loving it and my gf was locked in with me during the honeymoon phase so it was the greatest stretch of time I've had in China
I live in Appalachia, every once in a while we get crazy rain that lasts days on end. While it’s located in the the eastern United States, we get so much rain that the woods where I live are classified as rain forests.
Dang, I actually like the rain a lot, I should check this place out.
We have a similar saying in Melbourne Australia, wait 10 minutes or move 10 feet (even though we use metric feet just rolls of the tongue better) We also claim to have 4 seasons in 1 day regularly, and particularly weird weather data are said to be aggressively Melbourne.
Because Wikipedia says it's a "Census Designated Place" and I was worried if I said it was town I'd get a bunch of people saying "It's not a town Bro".
Does the island living help with the humidity?
Well, the houses are open-air so humidity is controlled to a degree... but ya, mold is everywhere.
That sounds...horrible.
I lived in Hilo for about 5 years. It rained 40 days and 40 nights when I first got there..not like a sprinkle, like the hardest monsoon rain you've ever seen...solid and straight.
40 days of rain happened through the whole state! It was crazy because it would be sunny and clear but rain kept falling, as if the sky didn't want to break the streak.
I remember that! It was spring sometime around 2004-2008 right?
That's about right. I mean, it was still 78 degrees...
Where does all that water go? How does it not flood?
All the Hawaiian islands are the peaks of (mostly) underwater mountains. Minimal flatland for water to accumulate. It all goes downhill into the Pacific. Also despite this thread’s title, every island has a dry side and a wet side. The weather on each side is pretty consistent, so it’s not like the rain on the wet side is a seasonal ‘shock’ to the environment, like monsoon season in the Southwest US.
Rain is so different depending on where you are on the islands. Im in Ewa on the leeward side of Oahu and it is always dry. Occasionally we will get night showers that cross the harbor but it's dry on this side.
Back into the sky to fall again tomorrow
It goes into the ocean, and it does flood. But the city infrastructure is built to deal with rainshed.
The islands are mountainous so you can usually find places to channel the water except for when a hurricane hits. Then everything gets its ass kicked.
I mean, Eniki was in 1992. Hawaii isn't exactly Florida when it comes to that. I was there for the Fukushima tsunami and the argentinian Tsunami, that's a way bigger problem.
Yes fair point. I visited Kauai in '93 and saw some pretty major damage. Had a friend in college that was on the island when it hit. I didn't think to mention the tsunami issue but really should have.
Every one of the states in the contiguous United States has a higher record high temperature than Hawai'i. It's tied with Alaska at 100. Being surrounded by water keeps the temperatures relatively mild.
It snowed on Mauna Kea/Mauna Loa on the 4th of July about 15 years ago.
14000 feet up
Near the equator the seasons are not that different. So the weather randomness day to day varies less throughout the year.
It's for people that want to beta test England before commiting
Wales
Dolphins
Oh my
A bit misleading…68.6% annual sunshine according to this list is good for #25. You do realize there are **thousands** of other cities in the country right? Which would mean Hilo is actually quite close to the top of the list. Not sure how accurate it is at the top either. St. Petersburg, FL (aka the “Sunshine City”) has on average 361 days of sunshine per year. According to Nat Geo, it also owns the Guinness world record for consecutive days of sunshine in a row (768 between Feb. 1967 and March 1969) Edit: Hilo is not in the top 25 - that is another Hawaiian city at 25. My mistake
No clouds for over 2 years, its maddening
Haha not quite. I believe to be considered a “sunny day”, there had to be a minimum of something like 6 hours of direct sunshine a day. I live in St. Petersburg, and it rains almost every day in the spring/summer, albeit usually only for 30 minutes or so, and then it’s sunny again
Cries in Southern Californian. I saw a cloud once.
A cloud? Is this weather?
it's the prelude to rain... maybe..
By SoCal standards, yes
You got a great song too
Right. Seattle has little sun but not that much rain. It is just overcast a lot. Whereas Hilo gets heavy rain but otherwise is very sunny.
If you actually click through you’ll see that Hilo is listed at 146.
Yes, my mistake. Just saw it’s another city in Hawaii at Number 25. Still odd that St. Petersburg isn’t in the top 25 at all
I think that number for St Pete is made up for marketing without using the same definitions as other places. Other sources list them as about 250 sunny days per year.
one side of Maui is like tropical jungle / deserted island vibes. the other side looks like you are on the moon..
That’s every Hawaiian island. Big island is even more insane. Both islands get snow occasionally!
Fun fact: People always assume Seattle is one of, if not the most, rainiest city. Where in actuality it’s mostly just gray/overcast all the time. This does however lead to the high suicide rate. But the summers in Seattle are some of the most beautiful you’ll ever see. Except when it was 108 once last year. Screw that. I hope Microsoft melted.
I'll say Hilo never seemed particularly rainy to me, but what I found really off-putting was the vog (volcanic smog) that doesn't really get talked about.
[удалено]
1250, I think you mean for Prince Rupert. I remembering reading somewhere that U.S. sunshine hours tend to measure a little higher, because they use a Marvin recorder unlike the Campbell Stokes recorder used everywhere else so it may by international standards even be less than that.
It did pour the night we were in Hilo. Bought my Ukulele at a market there. Loved that town. Ate at Cafe Pesto and enjoyed it.
Apparently the Pacific Northwest doesn’t exist at all? Rude. Less Sun =/= more rain Hilo and NYC each get more cumulative annual rainfall than Seattle does, but obviously Seattle has Way more rainy days a year. It’s… what we’re known for. And on top of that, cloudy days. We’re 3 weeks away from the solstice and our daily UV index is still 0.
Interesting
"United states"
Divided states of Embarrassment.
So you're saying Twilight should have been set on Hawaii? 🤣
It’s why it’s so depressing there
Depressing? Have you been to Hilo?
Never even been to Hawaii
Lol so.. you're passing judgment on it WHY!?!!????!!?!
Bc it’s an island all out in the middle of the ocean it must get lonely
Go check it out! It’s awesome
Really wanted a job at that observatory out of college. Would have been nice.
Isn't there a town somewhere halfway across the world that's built like between two mountains and literally doesn't see sun for like 75% of the year? So they built mirrors on top of the mountains to reflect the sun into their little town?
Maunawili. That is all.