Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday:

76  Lihue, Kauai
78  Honolulu, Oahu
74  Molokai
73  Kahului, Maui
80  Kona, Hawaii
80  Hilo, Hawaii


Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops on Maui and the Big Island…as of 830pm Wednesday evening:

 

Kailua Kona – 74
Hilo, Hawaii – 68


Haleakala Summit –   37 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 25 (13,000+ feet on the Big Island)


Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’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.

 


Aloha Paragraphs


http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/ir4.jpg

We’re seeing showers in some parts of the state, a few of which
will continue to be locally heavy, especially from Maui County
down through the Big Island. There may be a few thunderstorms
as well…along with localized flooding into Thursday

Locally strong and gusty, cool northeast winds today

The longer range forecast calls for another cold front…
bringing widespread showers our way this weekend into
early next week

Big Island summits – see the snow up there when its not foggy




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

25  Lihue, Kauai – NE
42  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu – NNE
25  Molokai – NE
33  Lanai – NE
28  Kahoolawe – NE
28  Kapalua, Maui – NE
29  Pali 2, Big Island – NNE


Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Wednesday evening (545pm totals):

0.97  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
4.52  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
4.19  Molokai
0.56  Lanai
0.01  Kahoolawe
3.35  Kahakuloa, Maui
2.40  Island Dairy, Big Island


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 image… and finally the latest looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands.


~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



Our winds will be from the northeast, locally strong and gusty…then gradually lighter from the east Thursday. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean. Here’s a real-time wind profile of the central Pacific…centered on the Hawaiian Islands. ~~~ We find a cold front stalled just to the northeast of the Big Island and Maui. Locally gusty northeasterly winds will continue into Thursday morning. The winds will ease up some later Thursday into Friday morning. The next cold front, forecast to arrive this coming weekend, will prompt southeast through southwest winds…which could become quite gusty by later Friday into the wekeend.

Satellite imagery shows lots of clouds over the state, some are heavy rain producers…especially over Maui County and the Big Island. There is a thick band of rainy clouds draped over the eastern side of the state, with a few embedded thunderstorms. The Kauai end, including Oahu are finding less cloudiness, although there are lower level clouds. Here’s the looping radar image, showing the bulk of the precipitation over Maui County and the Big Island…along with a few showers edging towards Oahu at times too. Looking at this larger satellite image, which is in the looping mode, we can see a blossoming of those brighter white, deep shower clouds over the islands…with Kauai and Oahu out from under the rainy clouds the time of this writing. The majority of the showers are falling in the light to moderately heavy range, although some are locally heavy too. There’s been flooding over some areas, particularly Maui County and the Big Island during the last 24 hours…and a flash flood watch continues over those eastern islands through noon Thursday.

An upper level trough of low pressure is over the state now, which is making our atmosphere, at least in places…unstable and very shower prone. This trough with its cold air, are enhancing the showers that are over the state, which its been doing for the last few days. We’ll see generous rainfall here and there, especially over parts of Maui County. The threat of heavy showers will finally ease later Thursday onwards, although there will continue to be showers around.  Looking head, we’ll see a brief return of lighter trade winds Thursday into Friday morning, with windward showers. Thereafter, the air flow shifts back to the southeast, south and southwest later Friday, ahead of the next cold front slated to arrive this weekend. This weekend cold front will migrate through the island chain, bringing another round of widespread showers…although unlikely to be as long lasting, or intense than the current situation. ~~~ I’ll be early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Wednesday night wherever you’re spending it. Please drive very carefully if you find yourselves on wet streets here in Hawaii, which wouldn’t be too unusual at the moment! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here on Maui early this morning, at the 3,100 foot elevation, at my upper Kula, Maui weather tower, the outdoor air temperature sensor was reading 57F degrees at 550am this morning. While I was meditating before starting this update, I was seeing flashes of lightning, and heard one big clap of thunder off in the distance. It’s not raining here at the moment, although I did hear at least one good shower that fell overnight. A quick update at 6am, there’s more lightning now over the Haleakala Crater, with following thunder. It’s now lightly raining at 610am, with more lightning and thunder in the distance. The rains have become heavier at 635am, with the temperature having fallen to 55 degrees.

~~~ It’s now just before 8am HST Wednesday morning, and its raining in a heavy fashion. I haven’t seen any lightning or heard thunder in an hour or more, so the thunderstorms have backed off to some degree…at least in my area. The rain is coming straight down, with hardly any breeze at all. The temperature is 56.5 degrees, and we’ve got another definite winter morning on our hands folks!

~~~ Tea time (1115am), and well, what else is new lately…its still raining! Swinging around in my chair, here in the Kula weather tower, I see nothing but clouds, although the cumulus clouds over the West Maui Mountains, have a slight light edge to them. I got out for my early walk despite the rainy weather, as fortunately I have quality rain gear, that keeps me dry no matter what. I rarely get to wear it, and I always enjoy suiting up, and getting out there on the road walking, when the rest of humanity is warm and dry inside their houses. At any rate, the air temperature has risen a bit, and is now right at 60.3 degrees, not exactly the warmest day of the year! Speaking of warmth, the warmest place anywhere in the state again today, was the Honolulu airport, which was actually partly sunny…and 74 degrees!

~~~ We’ve now pushed into the early afternoon hours, with the light to moderate rainfall having backed off to a very light mist. The temperature is a coolish 59.9 degrees, with near calm winds. Oops, now we’re back into light rain, as it keeps going between moderate to misty…back and forth. By the way, have you seen this webcam picture of Mauna Kea, the tall summit on the Big Island, it clears just enough to see the snow once in a while. The image takes 1 minute to change to the newest photo…which often reveals quite a beautiful scene. As has been the case the last few days, the lions share of this precipitation has been spread across Oahu, Maui County, and the Big Island…with Kauai just beyond range of this winter rainfall event. Now with that said, I notice that Lihue, Kauai was reporting light rain early this afternoon, while Honolulu was still reporting partly sunny skies, with a warm 77 degrees.

~~~ Here we are moving into the evening hours, and its still lightly raining here in Kula. The air temperature is 58.8 degrees, with just a light breeze. It’s sunset as I write these words, and I can actually see quite a bit of bright light over towards Kihei and Lahaina! There’s even a couple of thin breaks in the cloud cover, with blue, yes blue skies visible! It appears that we still have a ways to go, before we can completely dig ourselves out of this winter reality, tropically speaking that is. Yet, as we all know, things change, everything does, and we can depend upon better weather to arrive before too long. Hang in there folks, everywhere in the world…where the weather is perhaps at odds with our expectations in the moment.



World-wide tropical cyclone activity:


Atlantic Ocean: The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th. Here’s the 2013 hurricane season summary


Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

Caribbean Sea:

Gulf of Mexico:

Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico.

Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)

Eastern Pacific: The Eastern Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15th through November 30th. Here’s the 2013 hurricane season summary


Here’s a wide satellite image that covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.


Central Pacific Ocean: The Central Pacific hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th. Here’s the 2013 hurricane season summary


Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)


Western Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones


South Pacific Ocean: Tropical Cyclone 11P has spun up in the Coral Sea, here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with a NOAA satellite image


North and South Indian Oceans: There are no active tropical cyclones

Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)


Interesting: Amazing discovery in Antarctica: sea anemones found living upside down under ice – Sea anemones are supposed to sit on the bottom of the ocean, using their basal disc (or adhesive foot) to rest on a coral reef or sand. So, imagine the surprise of geologists in Antarctica when they discovered a mass of sea anemones hanging upside from the underside of the Ross Ice Shelf like a village of wispy ghosts. The researchers weren’t even there to discover new life, but to learn about South Pole currents through the Antarctic Geological Drilling (ANDRILL) Program via a remotely-operated undersea robot.


“When we looked up at the bottom of the ice shelf, there they were,” says Frank Rack, executive director of ANDRILL, who calls the discovery “total serendipity.” The scientists have named the new upside down anemones Edwardsiella andrillae after the program. Named after the flower, anemones are actually predatory marine animals distantly related to corals and jellyfish.


In 2010, scientist deployed a robot known as the Submersible Capable of under-Ice Navigation and Imaging (SCINI) into the waters beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, the largest off the continent. The robot employed a hot water drill to melt an 850-foot hole through the ice shelf before being dropped into open water. But instead of surveying barren waters, the camera on the robot reveled “an unexpected and astonishing glimpse into this subsurface world, discovering an unusual and likely unique marine biological community dominated by anemones living inside burrows in the lower surface of the ice shelf,” write the scientists in a new paper in PLOS ONE describing the species. In fact, the camera recorded tens-of-thousands of these never-before witnessed ice anemones.


Although the anemones shrunk back from the infiltrating robot, the researchers were able to collect a few specimens by stunning the anemones with a hot water cannon on the robot and transferring them to McMurdo Station.


“This is the first species of sea anemone reported to live in ice,” the scientists write. “Previously described species of sea anemones from Antarctica are reported from hard or soft substrates, but always below the anchor ice.”


In addition, this is the first time scientists have ever discovered anemones in the Edwardsiella genus (also known as burrowing anemones) near the continent. The bone-white, ghostly anemones are a few inches long when fully extended and sport 20 to 24 tentacles.