Heavy rains were being dragged across Hawaii by a “Kona low” for the second time in two weeks, prompting residents to flee their homes and closing roads across the island chain.

Evacuations were ordered in the Waialua and Haleiwa sections of northwest Oahu after flooding threatened a dam in the area, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said on its website. Roads across Oahu have been closed by flooding, according to the state’s transportation department.

At least 2 feet of rain has fallen across Oahu. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green closed government offices Friday.

“With catastrophic flash flooding already impacting parts of Oahu, including evacuation orders on the North Shore and the potential for dam-related impacts, we are taking this situation extremely seriously,” Green said in a statement. “We urge everyone to heed all warnings, evacuate if directed and stay out of floodwaters as this storm continues through the weekend.”

On Oahu, the state’s most populous island, a flash flood emergency was declared Friday for the first time since 2021. Flood watches and warnings remain across the entire state Saturday.

The heavy rains come less than a week after the island was struck by floods, further compounding the disaster. An earlier Kona storm from March 10 to March 16 dropped 38.8 inches (98.5 centimeters) of rain on Puu Waawaa on the island of Hawaii and 49.6 inches at the Summit of Maui, the National Weather Service said.

“There have been two really big, impactful storm events going through the middle of March,” said Andrew Orrison, a forecaster with the U.S. Weather Prediction Center. “They have just had a ton of rain down there.”

Orrison said Kona low storms are typical at this time of year and will form to the south or southwest of Hawaii, pumping deep tropical moisture over the islands. The slow-moving storms can linger, as the current round is doing, and bring days of heavy rains that are made worse when the fronts wring themselves out on the state’s volcanic mountains.

“If you are going to have high impact rainfall totals, March is the time of the year that it is going to happen,” Orrison said. The storms are forecast to taper off early next week, which should usher in a period of dry weather across Hawaii, he said.

While the storm plays out in Hawaii, heat records have been shattered across the western half of the continental U.S. with at least 110 daily high temperatures either having been broken or tied, Orrison said. In addition, at least a dozen sites posted their all-time warmest March days.

Las Vegas reached a high of 97 F (36 C) Friday, breaking its old record for the date of 90 F set in 2004 and setting a new all-time high for the month, the National Weather Service said.

“Yesterday was a pretty amazing day,” Orrison said. “Some of these records go way back, it shows how impressive the heat wave is across the West where temperatures are 20 F to 40 F above normal.”

While the most intense heat will relax starting Monday, the above normal temperatures are expected to continue well into next week.

“It is so off the charts right now in terms of magnitude, even if it comes down off its peak it is still anomalously hot out there,” Orrison said.

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