Darby makes landfall on Hawaii: AIR

AIR Worldwide has confirmed that Hurricane Darby has made landfall along the Ka’u coast of Hawaii Island as a tropical storm.

Darby formed off the coast of Mexico on July 11 and quickly reached hurricane status, although it weakened as it approached Hawaii. As it made a landfall, Darby passed over close to where Tropical Storm Iselle made landfall about two years ago.

“At the time, Iselle was the first tropical storm approaching from the east to hit the Big Island since an unnamed storm hit from that direction in 1958,” said Scott Stransky, assistant vice president and principal scientist at AIR Worldwide.

“And haggard though Darby was after its eastern approach, it achieved what none of the tropical cyclones in the central Pacific did last year: It made landfall – and became only the fifth landfalling tropical cyclone in Hawaii’s recorded history. The record shows no Hawaii landfalls as close together as Iselle’s and Darby’s.”

Darby was downgraded to a tropical depression from 5am local time. It is expected to rain heavily and be extremely windy across Hawaii, with rough surf.

Darby made an impact, despite it not being as damaging as Iselle was, according to AIR. Over 1,000 households lost their electricity on the island, more commonly known as the Big Island, over the weekend, with 100 still without power as the latest information.

AIR did not provide an estimate on the possible financial impact of Darby.