Updated at 11:34 a.m., Monday, January 21, 2002

More rain in store through Wednesday

Advertiser Staff

Weaker wind, more rain, humidity.

That's your pocket forecast this week from the National Weather Service.

The trade wind gusts of up to 35 mph this weekend were predicted to drop to 10 to 25 mph by late today and weaken gradually to 5 to 15 mph by Wednesday, said meteorologist Jeff Powell.

And you can count on rain, he said.

"Oh yes, there is a chance of thunderstorms," he said. "It is still unstable out there. It's isolated, so the chances of getting hit with a thunderstorm are slim. We can't say who will get it or where, but someone will get it."

An upper low to the north of the state will keep conditions unstable, probably for the rest of the week, Powell said.

With high temperatures in the 80s, it will be warm and humid, too.

Wind, rain cause outages

Gusting winds and driving rain caused 11 separate power outages over the weekend, Hawaiian Electric Co. officials reported today. There also were numerous reports of momentary losses.

More than 10,000 customers had been affected at one time or another by the outages through this morning, said Fred Kobashikawa, HECO spokesman.

The most recent outage lasted nearly four hours this morning in Manoa.

Power outages were first reported at 10:14 p.m. Friday in Iwilei and later in Pohakupu and parts of Manoa. On Saturday, power went out in Niu Valley and 'Ainakoa, Wailupe, parts of Hawai'i Kai and Kapalama.

Yesterday, the power went out again in Pohakupu.

At 4:25 a.m. today, power was lost in parts of Manoa; it was restored by 8:05 a.m.

Worst hit were 3,200 customers in Niu Valley and 'Ainakoa, but most of them probably slept through it: The outage began at 12:04 a.m. Saturday and lasted 1 hour and 48 minutes.