An extremely powerful winter storm is pulling away from Hawaii after unleashing damaging winds, massive waves, coastal flooding, and snow in unusual places. The storm’s most extreme blow was generated on the Big Island’s towering peak of Mauna Kea where a 191-mph wind gust blasted the mountain summit at 4:40 p.m. local time Sunday. The road is shut down whenever visibility drops below 50 feet, or winds gust to 65 mph or greater. “[P]erhaps [for] the first time ever, snow has fallen in a Hawai’i State Park,” the DLNR posted to its Facebook page Sunday. “You have a mix of swell – which is generated in many different areas of the Pacific – combining with wind waves.

Source: National Post February 11, 2019 17:48 UTC