The Weather.
This unfailing topic of general conversation has suffered no diminution of late. Thunder, lighting, rain and hail, and even snow, according to some, have prevailed in quantities and duration beyond the memory of the “oldest inhabitant.” On Friday night, the 14th inst., hail fell in Koolauloa on this island, and we are told, in quantities to be scooped up by the hands, and people crossing the Waianae mountains that night report that snow fell thick on the mountain peaks. On Saturday morning the thermometer in Honolulu stood at 53°, and credible people aver that the saw snow flakes in the air, though they melted by or before touching the ground. Wednesday morning, this week, a thunderstorm passed over this town from the Southwest which, for sharpness of lightning and loudness of thunder, was the severest of many years. The lightning apparently played over the town in every direction, yet, we are happy to say, without any damage, excepting that a Chinaman was knocked down in the street and remained for some time perfectly paralysed before coming to, and a man, hoisting the colors on a flagstaff, felt a blow over the wrist which benumbed the hand for upwards of an hour before it passed off. In the afternoon of the same day the weather cleared up a little, but during the night, between 11½ and 3 o’clock, the thunderstorm raged again in all imaginable fury, accompanied with showers of rain so severe that it seemed almost impossible for any roofing to withstand the force of the fall or the weight of the falling water. The Waikiki plains were at one time almost literally a sheet of water, and partial freshets occurred in several directions, though the main river of the Nuuanu Valley was not filled so as to endanger the bridge leading over it. How many inches, or rather feet, of rain fell that night we have not learned, but the amount must have been enormous.
[This was a very strange year. Hualalai was cloaked in snow as well!]
(Polynesian, 2/22/1862, p. 2)
The Polynesian, Volume XVIII, Number 43, Page 2. February 22, 1862.
nupepa 
How many people “cross the Waianae mountains”, meaning that they hike all the way up and over and down – at night?? For those are the ones who supposedly saw snow there.
As global warming changes our weather, we no longer go through winter temperatures in the 50s, but we did have such until the 1970s, and no snow flakes were ever seen in the air in the 20th century in Honolulu.
I do believe that strong storms occurred in 1862, but I do not believe snow fell.
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When I was in 7th grade at Trinity Lutheran in Wahiawa, there was hail. Teachers and students went outside to see it.
Antya
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Although, how often lately do we see snow on Hualalai…
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