I made NOAA’s Hawaiʻi wind reports searchable: 602 entries across eight islands, 1996–2026
I pulled NOAA NCEI’s Storm Events Database bulk files for Hawaiʻi and turned the wind entries into one ranked, searchable table.
It contains 602 entries with a reported wind speed across all eight main islands, covering January 1996 through April 2026. You can sort them by speed, filter by island, share an individual entry, and open its original NOAA record.
Search the table:
https://oahuroofsupport.com/blog-posts/strongest-winds-recorded-hawaii
A few things that stood out:
The four highest entries statewide are all Big Island summit-area gusts:
- 171 mph on March 2, 2014
- 166 mph on December 19, 2022
- 161 mph on February 7, 2019
- 155 mph on January 2, 2015
None were associated with a tropical cyclone.
The number of entries is heavily skewed by island:
- Hawaiʻi Island: 265
- Oʻahu: 167
- Maui: 86
- Kauaʻi: 56
- Lānaʻi: 13
- Molokaʻi: 11
- Kahoʻolawe: 3
- Niʻihau: 1
That distribution likely reflects differences in instrument coverage and reporting as much as differences in actual wind conditions.
The highest Oʻahu entry in the dataset is 75 mph, recorded on December 26, 1996.
Measurement type also matters. Approximately 35% of the entries are instrument-measured, 45% are forecaster-estimated, and 20% have no measurement type identified. The table labels the measurement type on every row.
There are two important limitations. The dataset begins in January 1996, so Hurricane Iniki in 1992 and Hurricane Iwa in 1982 are excluded entirely. It also currently ends in April 2026, which means Hurricane Lala is not included yet. Any qualifying Lala entries can be added after the National Weather Service finalizes them and they appear in the Storm Events Database.
This is a searchable record of wind events filed in NOAA’s database, not a complete Hawaiʻi wind climatology or a live-observation tool.
Disclosure: I run a small roofing company in Haleʻiwa, and the table is hosted on our website. It is free to use, requires no signup or email address, and every entry links back to its original NOAA record.