Just right weather

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by comesatime

One thing caught my attention on the links supplied by Openid, all dry side BI locations had lots of overcast/cloudy days compared to dry side Oahu & Maui.

I don't remember it being that overcast, maybe the statistics are misleading?

It's hard to say because they don't post their definitions, and it's certainly not the most nuanced system, but Sunny seems to mean no clouds all day, Partly Cloudy seems to means some clouds during some part of the day, and Cloudy means some clouds all day... not necessarily overcast, in the way we think of Seattle type grey-all-day skies. But as a very general guide you can use it for comparisons with other towns. For more detail I'd look at NOOA or US National Weather Service archives.

But to answer the bigger question, the huge masses of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are responsible for the weather being somewhat different than the other Hawaiian islands.

[Due]

Originally Posted by Mark.ca

You want to move to HI to live in the desert? Why not come to CA or AZ? The areas that get that little usually aren't looking that great vegetation wise, they are hotter than your requirements or have vog problems. Best thing you can do is use the precipitation maps and the temps maps and go see the places in person. If you think it is for you then jump in.

This is a little too generalized, but mostly correct except it's nothing like AZ.

The vog problems in North Kohala are minimal and some areas like Hawi are relatively wet, cool and green, but not as wet as Waimea.

There are areas in NK that are hotter than the OP's desires.
The "desert" areas can be beautiful too: drip irrigation and A/C take care of the dry and hot issues. No mildew or mold.

Views are awesome: panoramic ocean, Kohala, Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, Hualalai.
Hear the surf below and nearby ocean access.

There are so many areas to choose from; the OP should spend much time here before deciding.

[terracore]

Here's some info about Hilo I cut and pasted from a previous post I made a few years ago. It's a little long but go to the bottom to see about sunny days, stats, etc. Although Hilo is just one area on the big island, the facts below can be considered generalizations for much of the east side. 41% of the daylight hours, Hilo is getting hit with sun. That means it's probably not raining, but that doesn't mean its raining 59% of the time (it could be cloudy/overcast and dry). The stat comes from a database they use to calculate how many solar panels you need.

Hilo features a tropical rainforest climate (Koppen Af), with substantial rainfall throughout the course of the year. Hilo's location on the eastern side of the island of Hawaiʻi, (windward relative to the trade winds), makes it the third wettest designated city in the United States behind the southeast Alaskan cities of Ketchikan and Yakutat and one of the wettest in the world.

Here's some info for comparison. You might know some place near one of these locations:

Mobile, Ala.: 67 inches average annual rainfall; 59 average annual rainy days
Pensacola, Fla.: 65 inches average annual rainfall; 56 average annual rainy days
New Orleans, La.: 64 inches average annual rainfall; 59 average annual rainy days
West Palm Beach, Fla.: 63 inches average annual rainfall; 58 average annual rainy days
Lafayette, La.: 62 inches average annual rainfall; 55 average annual rainy days
Baton Rouge, La.: 62 inches average annual rainfall; 56 average annual rainy days
Miami, Fla.: 62 inches average annual rainfall; 57 average annual rainy days
Port Arthur, Texas: 61 inches average annual rainfall; 51 average annual rainy days
Tallahassee, Fla.: 61 inches average annual rainfall; 56 average annual rainy days
Lake Charles, La.: 58 inches average annual rainfall; 50 average annual rainy days

If that wasn't too much information, Hilo isn't the wettest part of the Big Island. As you go up in elevation you can go up in rainfall. More info:

RAINFALL – If the islands of the State of Hawaii did not exist, the average annual rainfall upon the water where the islands actually lie would be about 25 inches. Instead, the actual average is about 70 inches. Thus the islands extract from the air that passes across them about 45 inches of rainfall that otherwise would not fall. That the mountains are dominantly responsible for this added water bonus is evident from annual rainfall maps, which show the tremendous amounts of rainfall deposited in mountainous areas in the average year. In many mountainous areas of the State these depths exceed 240 inches, or 20 feet. At Mt. Waialeale, on Kauai, the annual average reaches the extraordinary total of 486 inches – over 40 feet. This is the highest recorded annual average in the world.

Here's a rainfall map that may help:



What's that you say? Still not enough information? Well I'm here to help:

Number of Sunny Days

In the table below, the average number of Sunny Days for a city in Hawaii is the total days in a year when the sky is mostly clear. This includes the days when cloud covers up to 30% of the sky during daylight hours. Partly Sunny Days have cloud covering from 40% to 70% of the sky during the daytime. The rest of the days are mainly overcast, with at least 80% cloud cover. Total Days With Sun is a sum of the Sunny plus Partly Sunny days. All the numbers are annual averages, made from years of weather watching.

City............... Sunny Days.......Partly Sunny Days....Total Days With Sun
Hilo...................36......................... 132............................168................ .(168 by comparison to 86 with Yakutat, Alaska)
Honolulu............90.........................181 ............................271
Kahului, Maui......131.......................145........... .................276
Lihue, Kauai........56........................184........ ....................240

Enough info... No?

Amount of Sun
Here's another way to look at how much sunshine a city gets. The % Sun number measures the percentage of time between sunrise and sunset that sunshine reaches the ground. Again, these amounts are yearly averages based on many years of weather observations.

Percent sunshine yearly

Hilo...............41%
Honolulu........71%
Kahului......... 67%
Lihue.............59%