Air Temperatures
The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Saturday:

Lihue, Kauai –                      84   
Honolulu airport, Oahu –   85 
(Record high for Saturday / 91 – 1989)  
Kaneohe, Oahu –                  82
Molokai airport –                  81

Kahului airport, Maui –         83  
Kona airport –                     84
Hilo airport, Hawaii –            80

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain top around the state…as of 5pm Saturday evening:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 83
Hilo, Hawaii
–   77
 
Mauna Kea –   41
(near 13,800 feet on the Big Island)

Hawaii’s MountainsHere’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too…depending upon weather conditions. Here's the Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui…although this webcam is not always working correctly.

Tropical Cyclone activity in the eastern and central Pacific – Here’s the latest weather information coming out of the National Hurricane Center, covering the eastern north Pacific. You can find the latest tropical cyclone information for the central north Pacific (where Hawaii is located) by clicking on this link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here.  Here's a tropical cyclone tracking map for the eastern and central Pacific.

 Aloha Paragraphs

http://photos.travelblog.org/Photos/6364/32308/f/165764-Hawaiian-nature-0.jpg
 
 
  
The trade winds will increase a notch into the
early part of the new week ahead…easing up
some as we get into next Wednesday onwards

Passing windward showers at times, increasing
both tonight and Sunday night into Monday…
at times leeward too
  



As this weather map shows, we have a large near 1032 millibar high pressure system to the north of the islands.  At the same time, a ridge of high pressure extends southwest from this high pressure cell…which is located to the northwest of the Aloha state. Our local winds will remain active from the trade wind direction through Saturday…strengthening Sunday into Monday.

The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions as of Saturday evening:

31            Port Allen, Kauai – ENE  
44            Kuaokala, Oahu – NE
38            Molokai – ENE 
30            Kahoolawe – E
31            Kahului – NE

38            Lanai – NE

39            Waikoloa, Big Island – NE

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean
.  Here's the latest NOAA satellite picture – the latest looping satellite imageand finally the latest looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands.

Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Saturday evening:
 

0.92               Mount Waialeale, Kauai
1.62               Manoa Lyon Arboretum, Oahu
0.97               Molokai
0.04               Lanai
0.00               Kahoolawe

6.02               Puu Kukui, Maui
2.48               Kawainui Stream, Big Island
  


Sunset Commentary:
  Our trade winds will be on the increase tonight into Tuesday…tapering down some starting next Wednesday onwards. As for showers, there will continue to be some, falling generally in the light to moderately heavy range along our windward sides…although locally heavier at times locally. These showers will stretch over into leeward sides at times too, at least on some of the smaller islands. There are two old cold fronts located to our north and northeast, the first of which will arrive later tonight…with the second bringing more showers Sunday night into Monday. The Sunday night cloud band will likely be the more plentiful rainfall producer of the two.

Here in Kula, Maui at 520pm, it was partly cloudy, with light breezes…and an air temperature of 76.5F degrees. As this large view satellite image shows, we have lots of low clouds to our north, east and south. Those to our north and east will be the ones that bring periodic showers our way. Meanwhile, there are those brighter white high and middle level clouds to our southwest, west and northwest. Putting this next satellite image into motion, we can see the trade winds carrying those lower level clouds our way upstream of the islands. Then too, we can see those deeper clouds to our west active out there…although they don't seem to be coming our way at the moment. Finally, here's a closer look at our islands using this satellite picture.

The clouds that were banked-up against our windward sides this morning, have evaporated during the day. The leeward sides saw less of this stuff, with more sunshine arriving there than clouds Saturday afternoon in the early evening hours.  As we move through the night, the first old cold front will arrive, bringing an uptick in windward shower activity by the early morning hours. Sunday will be fairly similar to what we found Saturday, with a second increase in showers rolling in tomorrow night into Monday as well. This time of year we'll take any showers that we can get, which helps to put off drought conditions that typically exist during our long dry summer months. ~~~ I'll be back Sunday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Saturday night wherever you're spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

~~~ Thursday evening I drove down to Kahului to see the new film called Prometheus, starring Noomi Rapace, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron, and Michael Fassbender…among many others. The synopsis: Ridley Scott, director of Alien and Blade Runner, returns to the genre he helped define. With Prometheus, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race. ~~~ This is one that I've been looking forward to seeing for a while, and no, not just because I really like Noomi…or even Charlize! I do like both of them, although ever since I saw the trailer for this one, I've been getting excited about seeing it.

~~~ It came out a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to see it then, although I thought I'd let the crowds thin out a bit before taking it in. As it turned out I liked it very much, one of the best films I've seen in quite a while as a  matter of fact. It was a long film, although it could have gone on longer, and I would have been happy. This film was a scary one, more so than I anticipated going in, although not too much to have me squirming in my seat…or averting my eyes. It had good acting and a great look, the combination of which really caught my eye. As far as a grade goes, I'm going to go with a high A-…which had me completely engrossed from the very start to the very end of the film!  Here's the rather intense trailer in case you're willing to take a look.  Oh by the way, this is not a light weight film, far from it!

Extra: youtube video – Dolphins…Earth's most intelligent animals

[World-wide tropical cyclone activity:

Central Pacific Ocean:  There are no active tropical cyclones expected through the next 48 hours.

Eastern Pacific Ocean:  There are no active tropical cyclones expected through the next 48 hours.

Atlantic Ocean:   Tropical storm Debby remains active in the central Gulf of Mexico!  TS Debby was located approximately 200 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, with sustained winds of 50 mph. Here's the National Hurricane Center's graphical track map for Debby…along with a satellite image. TS Debby is the earliest 4th storm in the historical records, surpassing hurricane Dennis of 2005, which became a tropical storm on July 5th. Here's what the hurricane models are doing with TS Debby, branching between Texas and Florida…we'll have to wait and see. Debby's outer rain bands are lashing portions of the west-central and southern Florida.

ELSEWHERE…TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS.

Here is a graphical tropical weather outlook…showing this tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico

Western Pacific Ocean:
  There are no active tropical cyclones

South Indian Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones


Interesting:
  Global warming may cause more extinctions than predicted if scientists fail to account for interactions among species in their models, Yale and UConn researchers argue in Science. "Currently, most models predicting the effects of climate change treat species separately and focus only on climatic and environmental drivers," said Phoebe Zarnetske, the study's primary author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

"But we know that species don't exist in a vacuum. They interact with each other in ways that deeply affect their viability." Zarnetske said the complexity of "species interaction networks" discourages their inclusion in models predicting the effects of climate change. Using the single-species, or "climate envelope," approach, researchers have predicted that 15 percent to 37 percent of species will be faced with extinction by 2050.

But research has shown that top consumers — predators and herbivores — have an especially strong effect on many other species. In a warming world, these species are "biotic multipliers," increasing the extinction risk and altering the ranges of many other species in the food web. "Climate change is likely to have strong effects on top consumers.

As a result, these effects can ripple through an entire food web, multiplying extinction risks along the way," said Dave Skelly, a co-author of the study and professor of ecology at Yale. The paper argues that focusing on these biotic multipliers and their interactions with other species is a promising way to improve predictions of the effects of climate change, and recent studies support this idea.

On Isle Royale, an island in Lake Superior, rising winter temperatures and a disease outbreak caused wolf populations to decline and the number of moose to surge, leading to a decline in balsam fir trees. Studies in the rocky intertidal of the North American Pacific Coast show that higher temperatures altered the ranges of mussel species and their interaction with sea stars, their top predators, resulting in lower species diversity.

And in Arctic Greenland, studies show that without caribou and muskoxen as top herbivores, higher temperatures can lead to decreased diversity in tundra plants and, in turn, affect many other species dependent on them. "Species interactions are necessary for life on Earth. We rely on fisheries, timber, agriculture, medicine and a variety of other ecosystem services that result from intact species interactions," said Zarnetske.

"Humans have already altered these important species interactions, and climate change is predicted to alter them further. Incorporating these interactions into models is crucial to informed management decisions that protect biodiversity and the services it provides."

Multi-species models with species interactions, according to the paper, would enable tracking of the biotic multipliers by following how changes in the abundance of target species, such as top consumers, alter the composition of communities of species. But there needs to be more data. "Collecting this type of high-resolution biodiversity data will not be easy.

However, insights from such data could provide us with the ability to predict and thus avoid some of the negative effects of climate change on biodiversity," said Mark Urban, a co-author and an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut.