The Breath Between Seasons
Each fall, Maui’s trade winds soften and the air grows still, revealing the delicate balance that shapes island life.
by Chris Amundson
Daniel Sullivan
When the trade winds ease, Maui changes character. The sea in Kahului Harbor turns mirror-smooth. Heat settles over the Central Valley. Clouds gather behind Haleakalā, their bases sinking lower until the mountain seems to wear a shawl. It is a familiar pause – the shift from summer’s steady northeast trades to the unsettled air of the winter months.
The trade winds are steady northeast breezes driven by the vast Pacific high-pressure system. They sweep across the tropics, steering clouds toward Hawai‘i and setting the islands’ weather in motion.
From May through September, trades blow on roughly nine days out of ten. By October that reliability falters; in winter, they hold for barely half the days of the season. When high-pressure systems slide north or subtropical lows drift past, the northeast flow collapses and kona winds take their place, sweeping up from the south with warm, humid air. The stillness or reversal lasts only days, yet the change can be felt everywhere – in sticky afternoons, hazy horizons and the deep quiet of the valleys.
Centuries ago, the Pacific’s rhythm shifted in a broader way. Climate records drawn from coral and tree rings suggest that between about 1140 and 1260 AD – during what scientists call the Medieval Climate Anomaly – trade winds may have weakened and circulation across the Pacific subtly changed.
These altered patterns could have influenced ocean routes and weather across Polynesia, a period when voyagers expanded their reach to Aotearoa, Rapa Nui and eventually Hawai‘i. The same atmospheric variations that bring calm to Maui each winter once helped shape the paths of exploration across the Pacific.
Even when the surface feels calm, the air is not still. Maui’s terrain – two mountain masses divided by the Central Valley – creates its own circulations. Under normal trades, Haleakalā’s slopes generate twin vortices on the leeward side: one spinning clockwise, the other counterclockwise.
At night, cool air drains through the valleys; by day, the sun draws it upslope again. When the trades fade, these local winds are what remain – faint, shifting, often only strong enough to stir the dry grasses or carry the scent of the ocean inland.
Higher up, a trade-wind inversion marks the boundary between moist marine air and the dry layer above. It usually sits between 4,000 and 8,000 feet, trapping clouds and rainfall below. When trades weaken, that layer sinks and heat builds in the lowlands. Without the cleansing flow, volcanic emissions from Hawai‘i Island drift westward, and vog lingers until the next breeze restores balance.
For generations, Hawaiians read these patterns long before weather stations did. In ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i, wind is makani, and dozens of names describe its character and direction. The brisk northeast trades are moa‘e, the humid southerlies kona and a gentle seaside breeze kaiāulu. When the winds grow erratic, it is not absence but transition – one current yielding to another.
Cultural practitioners speak of Laʻamao-mao, goddess of the winds, who carries them in her ipu, or gourd. When calm endures too long, they may kāhea i nā makani o Laʻamaomao – call upon her winds to awaken and bring favorable weather. It is not a saying but a practice, an acknowledgment that motion in the air is part of the islands’ living pulse.
By late fall, intermittent trade winds press cool, clean air back across the chain. The inversion lifts, the vog thins and clouds rise again to the windward ridges. The pause ends; the island begins to breathe again.
