What to look for in nature in Hawaii this January

One of the best. The sanctuary that protects the islands’ humpbacks says whales can be seen from shore and from boats between November and April, but the animals do not all arrive at once. By January the early singers of December have company: mothers with newborn calves, rowdy groups of males chasing a female, and lone adults resting near the surface. The sanctuary and the Pacific Whale Foundation both schedule their shore counts for the last Saturdays of January, February and March, the window they treat as the height of the season, and in 2026 the January tally was about as large as the February one.

NOAA Fisheries notes that some make the roughly 3,000-mile trip from Alaska in as little as 28 days, and the sanctuary says more than half of the North Pacific’s humpbacks winter in Hawaiian waters. They come to mate and calve, not to feed.

Last month’s page, December in Hawaii, covers the song season and how to hear it underwater. In January that chorus keeps building toward its loudest weeks later in the winter.

Yes. On Saturday, January 30, 2027, hundreds of volunteers will spend the morning on headlands and beach parks across the islands, logging every humpback they see in 15-minute blocks. The Sanctuary Ocean Count, which NOAA’s humpback sanctuary marked as 30 years old in 2026, covers sites on Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi and Hawaiʻi Island. On the same morning the Pacific Whale Foundation runs its Great Whale Count, running since 1995, from about a dozen sites on Maui. Both organizers list 2027 counts on January 30, February 27 and March 27, from 8 a.m. to about noon. The Pacific Whale Foundation opens Maui registration on December 14, 2026, and asks each volunteer to stay for the full four hours; the sanctuary expects to open its registration in early January.

The totals are not a census: a whale seen from two sites, or seen again later, is counted twice. Their value is the long run of years from the same headlands. Weather matters too; in January 2023 rain and wind ended many counts early, and Maui reported from only one of its twelve sites.

In the January 2026 count, Kauaʻi volunteers logged 467 sightings, Maui 694, Hawaiʻi Island 355, Oʻahu 337, Molokaʻi 52 and Lānaʻi 49. The sanctuary’s own tally for the 2026 season shows how the count falls away by spring: 1,954 sightings in January, 1,935 in February and 436 in March, when Kona low storms also cut visibility.

From the end of January through February. Hawaiʻi Audubon Society gives that window for mōlī, the Laysan albatross, and the dates people have recorded fit it closely. At Kīlauea Point on Kauaʻi, refuge staff filmed a parent standing over a brand-new hatchling on January 24, 2023. On Midway Atoll, the egg of Wisdom, the oldest known wild bird, began to pip on January 29, 2025, and the chick was fully out the next day, with her mate on duty when it hatched. A Princeville chick that the Friends of Kauaʻi Wildlife Refuges followed last season hatched on February 3, 2026.

Hatching is not quick. The chick first breaks a small hole in the shell, called pipping, and needs time to work free; Wisdom’s chick took about a day. Newly hatched chicks stay tucked under a parent, so what you usually see is an adult sitting a little higher than before, perhaps with a gray, downy head showing underneath. DLNR says the young fledge in July, and receive no care from their parents once they go.

The Oʻahu ʻelepaio is the clearest case. DLNR says the breeding season on Oʻahu runs from January through July, with the occasional nest in fall. This small, cocky monarch flycatcher, brown above with a cocked tail and a loud, whistled call, lives in valleys of the Koʻolau and Waiʻanae ranges where tall streamside trees and a thick understory grow. Pairs hold territories all year and often stay together for many years, and both parents share the work of building a finely woven cup nest, incubating the usual two eggs, and feeding the young, which stay with them for a month or longer.

Only about 1,261 Oʻahu ʻelepaio were found in the last full census in 2012, which Pacific Rim Conservation describes as roughly 477 breeding pairs and 307 single males. DLNR names black rats as the main threat: they raid nests and kill females sitting on them. Pacific Rim Conservation, which has trapped rats around ʻelepaio nests for more than 20 years, says rat control has proven an effective way to raise nest success.

Native forest walks carry a duty: clean the mud from your boots and gear at the start and finish, then spray them with rubbing alcohol, so you do not carry the fungus that causes Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death from one forest to the next.

A Kona storm is the winter low that turns Hawaii’s weather around. Most of the year the trade winds blow from the northeast, so the windward sides get the showers and the leeward sides stay dry. When a deep low stalls west or northwest of the islands, the wind swings to the south and southwest, the “kona” or leeward direction, and the rain lands on coasts and slopes that normally see little. The Western Regional Climate Center notes that a well-developed Kona storm brings rain that is more widespread and lasts longer than a typical cold front; most winters have one or two, and some have none. Winter cold fronts also sweep down from the northwest, as many as six or eight in some seasons.

Averaged over 30 years, January sits in the middle of the wet season. The climate center says winter is the rainiest season almost everywhere below 2,000 feet, the Kona coast excepted, though at most of the stations in the table January averages less rain than December. Hilo averages just under 8 inches of rain in January, compared with about 12 in December. Molokaʻi and the Haleakalā ranger station run wetter than the lowland Maui and Kona airports, and Kona’s coast, which gets its rain in summer, stays near an inch. Nights are a little cooler than December’s at every one of these stations. At the Mauna Loa slope station, at 11,000 feet, the temperature falls to freezing or below on about six nights in an average January, and the climate center says big winter storms bring a foot or more of snow to the highest peaks a few times in a typical year.

When a Kona low is on the way, the cloud and sky forecast shows the rain bands lining up from the south, and the weather page tracks the falling pressure and the turning wind hour by hour.

The odds lean that way, and these are the months when it usually shows. Federal forecasters gave the islands little room for doubt in September: the Climate Prediction Center’s update of the 10th called a very strong event over the cool season more than 90 percent likely. A NOAA analysis of Hawaii winters on the climate.gov blog explains why that matters here: during El Niño the Pacific jet stream reaches farther east, placing the islands under sinking air that discourages rain, and the effect is felt mainly in the wet season, especially January and February. Over the long record, it found, Honolulu’s rainfall has run about 3 inches below average in El Niño years, against roughly 20 inches in a normal year.

The Pacific ENSO Applications Climate Center adds the timing that matters most for this page. Rain tends to hold up through much of the El Niño year itself, then dry conditions set in near its end and are usually worst in the first half of the following year, which here means January through June 2027. By DLNR’s reckoning, roughly seven in ten El Niño events have been followed by drought during the next wet season. In the last very strong event, NWS Honolulu warned in its 2015–16 wet-season newsletter of significantly below-average rain through April and widespread moderate drought by spring, and its hydrologist urged people on catchment to start saving water early.

A single storm can still bring a flash flood. NOAA issues its seasonal outlooks in the middle of each month, with Hawaii included on the Climate Prediction Center’s three-month outlook maps; check there for the newest rain and temperature odds before January.

Right now. The state’s ocean safety program puts the season of huge, dangerous north and west swells from November through April, driven by powerful storms far to the north. January sits in the middle of it, and a big swell can send huge waves onto Oʻahu’s North Shore, the north coast of Kauaʻi and Maui’s Peʻahi while the south shores stay much calmer. Watching from a safe spot is one of the great winter sights in the islands.

Only about 20 minutes over the month, and almost all of it in the evening. Because the islands are so close to the tropics, the change in day length through the year is small, and it is lopsided in January. Honolulu’s sunset moves from 6:01 p.m. on New Year’s Day to 6:21 p.m. on January 31, while its sunrise barely moves: 7:09 a.m. on the 1st, reaching its latest at 7:12 around the middle of the month, and back to 7:09 by the end. The table shows each island’s numbers.

That later sunset adds a few minutes each week to a walk after work or school. Look up times for your own valley or beach with the daylight calculator.

Times below are Hawaii Standard Time. January opens with Earth at its closest to the Sun, brings a meteor shower in its first week, and ends with the largest-looking full moon of 2027. The darkest evenings, with no moon, fall between roughly the 3rd and the 12th, bracketing the new moon of January 7.

Trade-wind clouds and Kona storms can hide any of these, so look at the cloud outlook before a late night, and use the moon calendar to find moonrise for your island.

1. Count whales together at the Sanctuary Ocean Count or the Great Whale Count on Saturday, January 30, 2027. Register ahead; Maui sign-up opens December 14, 2026, and the sanctuary’s in early January. Pack chairs, snacks and binoculars.
2. Start the year outdoors. Hawaii State Parks has made a New Year’s Day sunrise walk at Makapuʻu Point on Oʻahu a tradition in recent years, with Hawaiian protocol at first light on the paved lighthouse trail. Details for January 1, 2027, had not been posted in early October; look for DLNR’s announcement in December.
3. Join the last Christmas Bird Counts. The national count window closes on Tuesday, January 5, 2027, and some Hawaii circles may count in the first days of January. Hawaiʻi Audubon can put a family in touch with a team.
4. Count your yard’s kōlea. The Kōlea Count’s winter survey runs to March 31. A family can pick one lawn or schoolyard, note how many golden plovers use it, and report changes through the season, until the birds leave for Alaska in spring.
5. Walk to the albatross at Kaʻena Point from late January, when the first chicks hatch. There is no shade on the trail; go in the cool of the morning with a full bottle each.
6. Get up for the Quadrantids before dawn on January 4, or watch the Wolf Moon rise at dusk on January 21.

A Naturalist’s Field Journal gives children a place to keep their whale tallies and nest notes, and the full set of monthly nature guides covers every state.

• Hunting seasons and blaze orange. DLNR’s game bird rules close the pheasant, francolin, quail and partridge seasons on the final Sunday of January, which falls on January 31, 2027. Hunting days are mainly weekends and state holidays, with some extra weekdays in certain units; DLNR’s unit-by-unit announcement for 2026–27 had not been posted by early October, and DLNR has proposed changes to its game bird rules, so check its current announcements. Feral pig and goat hunting stays open year-round in many units on every island, and under the game mammal rules Kauaʻi’s Kōkeʻe unit opens to archery and dog-and-knife pig hunting from January through May, though Kōkeʻe was still closed after the hurricane in early October. In any area where firearms are allowed, every hunter, and anyone helping or tagging along, must wear an outer layer of solid, store-bought blaze orange on the upper body, visible from the front and the back even with a pack on; orange camouflage does not count. Hikers sharing those forests on weekends should wear bright colors too.
• Kauaʻi closures. In its September 30 reopening notice after Hurricane Nolo, DLNR reopened only a handful of Kauaʻi forest reserve and hunting areas and left every other state forest, wildlife area and trail on Kauaʻi shut. Its state parks division, updating recovery from Hurricanes Nolo and Lowell on October 2, listed Kōkeʻe Road as closed until further notice and every Kauaʻi state park closed apart from limited river access at Wailua, with all Kauaʻi camping shut. Check DLNR’s park notices before any Kauaʻi trip.
• Flash floods. A Kona storm can send streams over their banks with rain that fell far upslope. Wading or driving through a running stream is how people die in these floods; wait it out, and keep clear of muddy plumes where streams meet the sea. Streams and mud can carry leptospirosis; cover cuts.
• High surf. Heed lifeguards and signs on north- and west-facing beaches, and stay off wet rocks and ledges.
• Cold and ice on the summits. At 11,000 feet on Mauna Loa an average January brings about six freezing nights, and the summits above are colder still. Snow and ice can close the Maunakea summit road above the Visitor Information Station for days; check the Maunakea Weather Center forecast before driving up, bring warm layers and gloves, and remember that altitude sickness and long distances from medical help are real dangers.
• Kīlauea. On October 2, the USGS volcano observatory still listed Kīlauea at WATCH, with glow at the summit vents and more fountaining episodes possible. Read the latest update before visiting the park, and if you have asthma or heart disease, avoid the park on heavy vog days.
• Early dark. The sun sets between about 5:50 and 6:30 p.m. in January, depending on island and date, and tropical dusk is short. On long hikes, start early and carry a headlamp.