Heavy rain expected on 3 islands

The National Weather Service was carefully monitoring a dying cold front moving toward the islands that could bring thunderstorms and locally heavy rainfall to Kauai, Oahu and Niihau.

The weather service issued a flash-flood watch through tomorrow afternoon for the three islands.

"Conditions are ripe to allow for thunderstorms," weather service meteorologist Maureen Ballard said at about 8:30 last night.

"Everyone kind of needs to be prepared," she said, since the storms will possibly hit most parts of the islands. "Even if we don’t have thunderstorms move overhead, we may have heavy rain."

Ballard said meteorologists have the highest confidence that Kauai and Oahu will have heavy flooding and thunderstorms.

She cautioned that it may spread over Maui County and possibly Hawaii County.

Last night, however, Niihau was the only island getting any rain, with some showers over Kauai.

Light winds are expected to continue through the weekend, and light tradewinds may return for Thanksgiving.