Drought in Big Island Interior, Hawaii

The College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience's Cooperative Extension reported poor range conditions across the Big Island, with ranchers providing marginal feed with supplemental feeding. There were also persistent water shortages and ranchers have reportedly had to haul water at a great expense. Ranchers were weaning some cattle early, and destocking cows due to lack of available pasture feed. Many ranchers reported not seeing conditions similar to this since near 2008. There were reportedly twenty five percent water restrictions in place in the Hakalau area.

Below average rainfall allowed severe to extreme drought conditions to continue over much of the Big Island, especially over the Hamakua coast.