What is Tropical Storm Lala?
Tropical Storm Lala became the most destructive tropical cyclone to strike Hawaii since Hurricane Iniki in 1992, sweeping just south of the Big Island as a Category 1 hurricane on August 15, 2026, before weakening to a tropical storm and dragging its outer bands across Maui, Oahu, and Kauai through the following days. Despite never making a direct landfall, Lala’s slow forward speed allowed it to dump catastrophic rainfall on windward slopes, trigger widespread flash flooding, and generate hurricane-force wind gusts that toppled trees, destroyed bridges, and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of residents across the state.
This report compiles the latest verified statistics on Tropical Storm Lala in 2026, covering confirmed rainfall totals, peak wind speeds, storm surge, power outage figures, and preliminary damage estimates. Every figure is drawn from the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center, Hawaiian Electric, Hawaii Governor Josh Green’s office, and major wire services reporting directly from the ground. With recovery operations still underway across the Kaʻū district and outages expected to persist for weeks or even months in the hardest-hit rural areas, Lala’s full statistical toll continues to be assessed even as this report goes live.
Interesting Facts About Tropical Storm Lala 2026
| Fact | Data Point |
|---|---|
| Peak rainfall recorded on the Big Island | More than 30 inches, with forecasts of up to 35 inches at higher elevations |
| Wind gusts recorded atop Mauna Kea | 140 mph, with snow reported at the 13,803-foot summit |
| Peak wind gusts at surface level, Hawaii Island | Near 90 mph |
| Peak customers without power (statewide) | More than 250,900 customers |
| Confirmed deaths | At least 1, a 90-year-old woman who died in flooding |
| Homes damaged or destroyed | More than 100 homes, concentrated in the Kaʻū district |
| Bridges damaged or destroyed | At least 6 bridges in southern Hawaii Island |
| Preliminary economic damage estimate | $3 billion to $5 billion (AccuWeather) |
| Manoa Stream record water level | 14 feet, a record stream flow reading |
| Hawaii National Guard members deployed | About 240 |
Source: National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, Hawaiian Electric, Office of Hawaii Governor Josh Green, AccuWeather.
Taken together, these figures illustrate how a storm that never made direct landfall still managed to become one of the costliest natural disasters in modern Hawaiian history. Lala’s most dangerous characteristic was not its peak wind speed but its forward speed — the storm slowed dramatically as it passed roughly 30 miles south of the Big Island, allowing its outer rainbands to hover over the same windward slopes for more than 24 hours. That stalling pattern is precisely what produced rainfall totals exceeding 30 inches in a single 48-hour window, transforming normally modest streams into what the National Weather Service described as “raging torrents” capable of sweeping entire homes off their foundations.
The human and infrastructure toll further underscores how storm impacts in Hawaii are driven as much by terrain and water as by wind. While confirmed fatalities remained limited to one at the time of this report, Governor Green cautioned that “many casualties often happen after the disaster” — a warning borne out by the parallel dangers of downed power lines, damaged bridges cutting off entire communities like Pahala, and a preliminary damage estimate already reaching into the billions of dollars before full assessments are complete. With more than 100 homes damaged or destroyed and outages projected to last weeks or months in remote areas, Lala’s statistical footprint places it firmly among the most consequential Hawaiian storms since Iniki made its catastrophic direct hit more than three decades ago.
Tropical Storm Lala Wind Speed Statistics 2026
Tropical Storm/Hurricane Lala — Peak Wind Readings by Location (mph)
Mauna Kea summit gusts |████████████████████████████ 140
Hawaii Island surface gusts |██████████████████ 90
Peak sustained winds (hurr.) |███████████████ 75
Sustained winds (Aug 17, TS) |█████████████ 65
Honolulu airport gusts |█████████ 45
| Location/Metric | Wind Reading |
|---|---|
| Mauna Kea summit gusts | 140 mph, with wind chills dropping into the 20s°F |
| Hawaii Island surface wind gusts (peak) | Near 90 mph |
| Peak sustained winds as hurricane (Aug 15-16) | 75 mph |
| Sustained winds as tropical storm (Aug 17 advisory) | 65 mph, gusts to 75 mph |
| Minimum central pressure (Aug 17 advisory) | 994 mb (29.36 inches) |
| Wind gusts at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye Airport | Near 45 mph |
Source: National Hurricane Center Public Advisories, National Weather Service Honolulu, AccuWeather.
Wind speed data for Tropical Storm Lala reveals a storm whose winds intensified dramatically with elevation, a pattern the National Hurricane Center explicitly warned about, noting that “wind speeds atop mountains and on the windward and leeward slopes are often up to 30% stronger than the near-surface winds used to categorize storms.” That warning proved accurate: while sustained winds near the surface peaked around 75 mph as Lala briefly achieved Category 1 hurricane strength, gusts atop Mauna Kea — Hawaii’s tallest volcano at 13,803 feet — reached a staggering 140 mph, strong enough to produce snow and wind chills in the 20s°F at the summit even in mid-August.
At lower elevations, Hawaii Island still recorded gusts near 90 mph as the storm stalled just offshore, downing hundreds of trees and blocking roads across the island. By August 17, as Lala moved west and weakened to a straightforward tropical storm, the National Hurricane Center’s official advisory placed sustained winds at 65 mph with a central pressure of 994 millibars, while forecasters noted the storm “could become a hurricane again by late Tuesday” as it moved into more favorable conditions west of the islands — a reminder that Lala’s statistical story was still being written even as recovery efforts began back in Hawaii.
Tropical Storm Lala Rainfall Statistics 2026
Tropical Storm/Hurricane Lala — Rainfall Totals by Region (inches)
Big Island mountains (max forecast) |████████████████████████████ 35
Big Island (confirmed observed) |█████████████████████████ 30+
Maui mountainous areas |████████████████████ 24
Lower elevations, other islands |████████ 10
Island chain average (lower areas) |████ 4-6
| Location | Rainfall Total |
|---|---|
| Big Island (confirmed, observed) | More than 30 inches |
| Big Island higher elevations (forecast maximum) | Up to 35 inches |
| Maui mountainous/windward areas | Up to 2 feet (24 inches) |
| Maui and lower Big Island elevations (NHC forecast) | 8 to 12 inches |
| Remaining island chain, lower elevations | 4 to 10 inches |
| Remaining island chain, highest peaks and summits | More than 12 inches |
Source: National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service Honolulu, NPR, ABC News.
Rainfall totals from Tropical Storm Lala rank among the highest ever recorded from a Hawaiian tropical cyclone, driven by the storm’s unusually slow movement as it lingered south of the Big Island. Confirmed observations showed more than 30 inches of rain fell on the Big Island, with National Hurricane Center forecasters projecting that the highest-elevation slopes near Mauna Kea could ultimately see totals as high as 35 inches by the time the system fully cleared the region. That volume of rainfall — nearly three feet of water falling on already-saturated volcanic terrain — is precisely what triggered the flash flooding and landslide conditions that Hawaii County Civil Defense officials warned about throughout the weekend.
Maui’s mountainous windward areas saw similarly extreme totals, with up to 2 feet of rain recorded as the storm’s rainbands swept westward across the county. The record-setting nature of this event was captured vividly at Manoa Stream on Oahu, where water levels reached 14 feet on August 16 — a reading the National Weather Service Honolulu office described as “record stream flow” likely to cause “considerable impacts” to the surrounding Honolulu neighborhoods. Even islands that saw comparatively modest lower-elevation totals of 4 to 10 inches still recorded more than a foot of rain at their highest peaks and summits, illustrating how thoroughly Lala’s moisture blanketed the entire Hawaiian island chain regardless of proximity to the storm’s center.
Tropical Storm Lala Power Outage Statistics 2026
Hawaiian Electric Customers Without Power — Timeline (thousands)
Aug 16, 12:00 PM (peak) |████████████████████████████ 250.9
Aug 16, 8:00 AM |██████████████████████ 197.0
Aug 16, 2:30 PM |██████████████████████ 191.8
Aug 16, 7:00 PM (Sunday) |████████████████████ 178.4
Aug 17, morning |█████████████ 117.3
Aug 17, ~7:00 PM (Monday) |██████████ 88.7
| Date/Time | Customers Without Power (Statewide) |
|---|---|
| Aug 16, 12:00 PM (peak outage) | More than 250,900 |
| Aug 16, 8:00 AM | More than 197,000 |
| Aug 16, 2:30 PM | About 191,800 |
| Aug 16, 7:00 PM | About 178,400 |
| Aug 17, morning | About 117,300 |
| Aug 17, evening (Monday) | About 88,670 |
Source: Hawaiian Electric official updates, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Hawaii News Now, KITV.
Power outage statistics from Tropical Storm Lala reveal the scale of grid damage across all three of Hawaii’s largest islands, with the utility Hawaiian Electric confirming that more than 250,900 customers lost power at the peak of the storm on August 16. The outages were not evenly distributed: at the height of the crisis, Hawaii Island alone accounted for tens of thousands of outages concentrated in the Puna, North and South Kona, and South Kohala districts, while Oahu — despite being farther from the storm’s core — still saw more than 126,500 customers lose power in Leeward, Windward, and Honolulu areas as outer bands brought damaging gusts across the island.
Recovery has proceeded steadily but unevenly: by Monday, August 17, statewide outages had fallen to roughly 88,670 customers, a 65% reduction from the Sunday peak, as Hawaiian Electric crews repaired three major transmission lines and began bringing in out-of-state mutual aid crews to accelerate restoration. However, the utility has been explicit that recovery will not be uniform: customers in the hardest-hit rural areas of Hawaii Island have been told to “prepare for extended outages lasting weeks or even months,” since aerial damage assessments by helicopter and drone revealed major damage to infrastructure in remote areas that crews cannot yet safely access by road.
If you’re researching how storm-driven blackouts compare with wider American hurricane risk, our detailed Hurricanes Statistics in US report breaks down historical wind speeds, damage totals, and death tolls from the deadliest and costliest storms to strike the U.S. mainland.
Tropical Storm Lala Damage and Casualty Statistics 2026
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Confirmed deaths | 1 (90-year-old woman, drowned in flooding) |
| Deaths under investigation for storm connection | 1 (fatal car accident during storm’s closest approach) |
| Additional death under investigation | 1 (body found near a stream on Oahu) |
| Homes damaged or destroyed (Kaʻū district) | More than 100 |
| Bridges damaged or destroyed (Kaʻū district) | At least 6 |
| Preliminary economic damage/loss estimate | $3 billion to $5 billion (AccuWeather) |
| People rescued in Waiāhole, Oahu | 12 people from 4 threatened houses |
Source: Office of Hawaii Governor Josh Green, AccuWeather, CNN, Engineering News-Record.
Casualty and damage figures from Tropical Storm Lala reflect a storm whose destructive power came overwhelmingly from water rather than wind. Hawaii Governor Josh Green confirmed that a 90-year-old woman died after floodwaters swept away her home, and officials continued investigating whether a separate fatal car crash on the Big Island — which occurred as Lala made its closest approach to shore — was directly storm-related. Search efforts also continued for a person whose body was discovered near a stream on Oahu, underscoring the governor’s warning that flood-related dangers often persist well beyond a storm’s most intense hours.
The infrastructure toll was concentrated overwhelmingly in the Kaʻū District of southern Hawaii Island, which Mayor Kimo Alameda described in stark terms: “In the Kaʻū area, it’s devastation.” With more than 100 homes damaged or destroyed and at least six bridges knocked out along Mamalahoa Highway, flooding initially cut off the town of Pahala — home to Kaʻū Hospital — before emergency crews cleared a temporary access route to allow fuel, food, and medication deliveries to reach the isolated facility. AccuWeather’s preliminary estimate of $3 billion to $5 billion in total damage and economic loss already places Lala among the costliest tropical cyclones in Hawaiian history, trailing only Hurricane Iniki’s inflation-adjusted toll from 1992, when a direct Category 4 landfall on Kauai killed seven people and caused $3.1 billion in damage at the time.
Tropical Storm Lala Rescue and Emergency Response Statistics 2026
Emergency Response Snapshot — Tropical Storm Lala 2026
Hawaii National Guard deployed |██████████████ 240 members
Hawaiian Airlines cancellations (Sun) |███████ 52 flights
Flights paused/canceled (Sat) |████████████████████ ~190 flights
People rescued, Waiāhole, Oahu |████ 12 people / 4 homes
| Response Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Hawaii National Guard members deployed | About 240 |
| Flights paused or canceled (Saturday, peak of storm) | About 190 flights |
| Hawaiian Airlines cancellations (Sunday) | 52 flights |
| Commercial ports status | Fully reopened by Coast Guard Sunday night |
| People rescued in a single Oahu incident | 12 people from 4 flooded homes |
Source: Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, Hawaiian Airlines, U.S. Coast Guard, Honolulu Civil Beat.
Emergency response statistics for Tropical Storm Lala show a state mobilization effort that scaled up rapidly as the storm’s track became clearer. Roughly 240 members of the Hawaii National Guard were deployed to assist with search-and-rescue operations, debris clearance, and logistics support across the affected islands, while the storm’s disruption to air travel proved substantial even without a direct hurricane landfall: about 190 flights were paused or canceled at the height of the storm on Saturday, with Hawaiian Airlines alone reporting 52 cancellations on Sunday as conditions continued to deteriorate across the outer islands.
Water rescues defined much of the on-the-ground emergency response, with one particularly notable operation on Oahu in the Waiāhole area, where emergency crews rescued 12 people from four houses threatened by rapidly rising floodwaters. Elsewhere, officials described rescuing an elderly woman who was pulled from a tree after her house was swept away by floodwater — one of numerous similar operations conducted across the Big Island’s hardest-hit districts. By Sunday night, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that all of Hawaii’s commercial ports had reopened to vessel traffic, even as the agency emphasized that its “priority remains supporting post-storm recovery efforts” rather than a full return to normal operations.
Tropical Storm Lala in Historical Context 2026
| Storm | Year | Deaths | Damage | Peak Winds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hurricane Iniki | 1992 | 7 | $3.1 billion | 145 mph |
| Tropical Storm Lala | 2026 | 1 confirmed | $3-5 billion (preliminary) | 75 mph (peak hurricane strength) |
| Hurricane Lane | 2018 | 1 | ~$250 million | 160 mph (peak, offshore) |
| Tropical Storm Lane rainfall record | 2018 | — | — | 52.02 inches at Mountain View, HI |
Source: National Weather Service historical archives, Wikipedia storm data compiled from NHC records, AccuWeather.
Placed in historical context, Tropical Storm Lala stands out not for matching the wind intensity of Hawaii’s most infamous storms but for the sheer volume of rainfall and flooding damage it produced despite never making direct landfall. Hurricane Iniki, which struck Kauai directly in 1992 with 145 mph winds, remains the costliest hurricane in Hawaiian history at $3.1 billion, but Lala’s preliminary $3 billion to $5 billion damage estimate suggests it may ultimately rival or exceed Iniki’s toll once full assessments are complete — a remarkable outcome for a storm whose peak sustained winds topped out at roughly half of Iniki’s intensity. This gap between wind speed and total damage reinforces a pattern meteorologists have observed across many of the costliest storms nationally, where rainfall and flooding — not wind alone — increasingly drive the largest economic losses.
Lala’s rainfall totals also place it within striking distance of Hawaii’s all-time tropical cyclone rainfall record, set by Tropical Storm Lane in 2018, which dumped 52.02 inches on Mountain View, Hawaii — the second-highest tropical cyclone rainfall total ever recorded in the United States. While Lala’s confirmed totals of 30-plus inches did not surpass that record, the storm’s slow movement and prolonged interaction with Hawaii Island’s windward terrain produced conditions remarkably similar to those that made Lane so destructive. For readers tracking how disaster preparedness and emergency infrastructure gaps compound the impact of storms like Lala across different U.S. regions, our Dangerous States in the US report examines how climate disaster losses and emergency response rankings vary dramatically state by state — context that helps explain why some communities recover from major storms faster than others.
Tropical Storm Lala Recovery and Infrastructure Statistics 2026
| Recovery Metric | Status/Figure |
|---|---|
| Transmission lines repaired (initial phase) | 3 major lines on Hawaii Island |
| Independent power producers disconnected (Big Island) | 4 providers, requiring possible load-shedding |
| Damage assessment method | Helicopter and drone aerial inspections |
| Islands under aerial assessment (initial) | Hawaii Island and Maui first, Oahu following |
| Outage duration estimate (hardest-hit rural areas) | Weeks to months |
| Out-of-state utility crews | Requested and mobilized for expedited restoration |
Source: Hawaiian Electric official statements, KHON2, Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Recovery and infrastructure statistics for Tropical Storm Lala highlight just how methodically utility crews have had to approach restoration given the scale of terrain damage across the islands. Hawaiian Electric confirmed that four independent power producers on the Big Island — including major geothermal and renewable facilities — disconnected from the grid during the storm, a step that risked triggering temporary “load shedding” forced outages beyond the storm damage itself. Rather than relying solely on ground crews, the utility turned to aerial inspections by helicopter and drone across Hawaii Island and Maui to identify damage in rugged and remote terrain not accessible by foot — a technology-driven approach the company credited with expediting damage assessments that would otherwise have taken far longer using traditional ground surveys alone.
The decision to request out-of-state mutual aid crews reflects the scale of transmission and distribution damage identified once weather conditions allowed full assessments to begin. With several main transmission lines confirmed impacted across Hawaii Island, Maui, and Oahu, restoration has necessarily proceeded island by island and district by district, prioritizing critical facilities like Kaʻū Hospital before moving to broader residential restoration. For context on how wind-driven and rain-driven disasters compare in overall economic scale across the wider United States — including the growing role of climate-linked extreme weather events — our Wildfire Statistics in the US report offers a useful parallel look at how a different category of natural disaster has produced comparably enormous federal budget responses and multi-year recovery timelines.
Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.
